Your Earbuds Already Have the Hardware

The microphones inside noise-cancelling earbuds are capturing far more than just audio. auryx, a Cambridge University spinout, has built an AI platform that analyzes the acoustic signatures generated by the heart, lungs, and blood flow picked up by these microphones — extracting respiratory rate, cardiac output, heart rate, and even blood pressure in real time without any specialized hardware.

The $2M pre-seed was led by Celero Ventures with participation from EWOR, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Vento, PurposeTech, and ET Capital. The company was founded by CEO Erika Bondareva, CTO Kayla-Jade Butkow, and Chief Scientific Officer Professor Cecilia Mascolo, all from the University of Cambridge. Their PhD research proved that the ear canal is one of the most stable locations on the body for wearable sensing, making earbuds an ideal form factor for continuous health monitoring.

From Lab to Product

Over a decade of Cambridge research underpins the technology. Rather than competing with smartwatches using optical sensors, auryx repurposes hardware people already own and wear daily. The earbud microphones capture a broader range of physiological signals than wrist-based optical sensors can, bringing clinical-grade metrics to consumer devices. The team plans to partner with earbud manufacturers to integrate their AI models directly, turning billions of existing earbuds into passive health monitors.