Google Ventures, Others Back Elon Musk's Neuralink Startup With $205 Million Musk's project aims to develop brain implants that will be able to communicate with devices.
By Emily Rella Edited by Emily Rella
Elon Musk's Neuralink startup raised $205 million in a series C round from investors like Google Ventures, DFJ Growth, Founders Fund, and OPEN AI CEO Sam Altman.
Musk's project aims to develop brain implants that will be able to communicate with devices.
Vy Capital led the fundraising round, which Crunchbase says helped Neuralink hit $363 million in overall funding. Valor Equity Partners, Craft Ventures, and Gigafund also joined the round, as did ARCH Venture Partners co-founder Robert Nelson, Byers Capital's Blake Byers, Paradigm and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, and PayPal and Founders Fund co-founder Ken Howery.
Neuralink, founded in 2016, seeks to build "the first high channel count brain machine interface intended for therapeutic use in patients," according to a blog post announcing the funding round. The post added that the first indication the company's initial product, the N1 Link, is intended for is to help quadriplegics interact with devices "in a high bandwidth and naturalistic way." The funding from the round, the post said, will be used to take the first product to market as well as accelerate research and development on future products.
Neuralink's technology has been trialed on pigs as well as a monkey that was able to play a video game with its mind. Musk said in February that Neuralink could begin implanting computer chips in humans later this year.
