User:Mainak Santra/sandbox

= Hearing Plus = Hearing Plus is a company rendering professional rehabilitative services to persons with hearing loss. Its headquarter is based in Kolkata, West Bengal. In the year 2013, Hearing Plus was launched as a brand by Bengal Speech and Hearing Pvt. Ltd. Hearing Plus offers diagnostic and therapeutic services to people with hearing impairments. The company is run wholly and solely by a group of professional audiologists and speech language pathologists. Hearing Plus houses more than 60+ professional audiologists, who are trained to provide rehabilitative services to persons with hearing loss.

Background
The history of Hearing Plus dates back to 15 August 2006, when Somenath Mukherjee and his 6 enthusiastic hostel-mates, who were in their early twenties, founded Bengal Speech and Hearing Clinic. During their college days in 2002, the team had realized that their dream is one, that is, to serve the hearing impaired population in India. In 2009 Bengal Speech and Hearing Clinic became a Pvt. Ltd. Company and the journey continued.

Initially, the growth of Bengal Speech and Hearing Pvt. Ltd. was slow and in fact, till 2008, the company had a single clinic in Kolkata. Till 2012, the company had already spread its wings in different districts of West Bengal. It was only in 2014 when a Venture Capitalist firm Matrix Partners picked up significantly minority stakes that gave a further boost for growth. Bengal Speech and Hearing Pvt. Ltd. had already branched out as Hearing Plus in the previous year prior to the venture capitalist funding. The company presently has over 40+ centers in different states in India. Hearing Plus has its dedicated centers in West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam, Delhi, Haryana, UP and Maharashtra.

Funding History
When Somenath Mukherjee and his hostel-mates decided to set up an audiology clinic for the accomplishment of their dreams, they realized that gathering fund is their primary challenge. The team decided that they are not going to beg money from their parents; hence, they started contributing 50% of their internship remuneration to build up a corpus of funds in order to make their dream a reality. However, the fund raised was just enough for buying an Audiometer and a second hand Tympanometer, which are the most important instruments to diagnose hearing loss in a person. But, that was not all; the team needed still more fund to get a place for the clinic and to hire a receptionist. So, they went to Mumbai to visit the CEO of a Hearing Aid Manufacturer Company to borrow some more money. He agreed upon helping them and on 15 August 2006, the first clinic is opened as Bengal Speech and Hearing Clinic. Thus, they started their journey and in 2014, Matrix Partners India invested $5 million for the business expansion.

Services
Hearing Plus offers a wide range of advanced diagnostic and rehabilitative services to hearing impaired persons. The company offers several diagnostic services for adults and children, including newborns for identification of hearing impairment. The rehabilitative services include hearing aid selection and fitting and auditory training.

Awards and Recognition

 * In 2014, Hearing Plus received Global Healthcare Excellence Award and was named as the Audiology Service Provider Company of the Year.
 * In 2015 it became the First Runner Up for The Bengal Entrepreneurship Recognition.
 * In TIECON 2015 they were awarded for the Success Story of the Year ,
 * ET Bengal Corporate Awards for being the highest job creator, and being the fastest growing company all in the same year.