Elon Musk’s new brain-machine interface Startup Neurolink is getting some big lift. The health-focused startup has just raised $27 million in fresh capital. Musk made the big announcement this week.
According to TechCrunch, the Tesla CEO has just has raised $27 million in fresh capital for Neurolink, which hopes to connect the human brain to a computer. However, Musk tweeted this week, saying that Neurolink is no longer raising funds. This suggests that Musk may be significantly contributing or actively involved in the funding effort or the company has already locked in other investors.
About Neurolink, Musk’s new health-focused startup
Founded in 2016 and based in San Francisco, Neurolink is neuro technology startup founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and eight other persons. The health-focused startup is currently working on an implantable brain computer interfaces or BCIs. Neurolink aims to help people with certain brain injuries and chronic medical conditions like epilepsy.
Additionally, the technology could also allow people to communicate through brains, instead of having to make conversation through words or writing. However, the BICs may still require some sorts of surgical implants. Here, a neural wire would be surgically implanted in a human brain and allow a user to interact with a computer.
Neurolink is currently working to bring this technology to market. The company is exploring the capabilities of the brain through some technological innovation like the neural lace technology. Musk believes that a neural lace technology would be the answer in his ongoing effort to build a brain-machine interface.
In addition to the newly raised capital, the startup has also sold $27 million worth of equity out of its total offering of $100 million, according to a published document from SEC.
The filed document on SEC also listed 12 unnamed investors. The SEC document also suggests that the equity was first sold in the market on August 15, 2017.
Neurolink is not alone, Facebook is also on the hunt
Neurolink is not the only company that working on this kind of technology. Social networking giant Facebook is also on the hunt.
At the recent F8 event, the company revealed that it is also working on a brain-computer interface that will let users type with just using minds.
TechCrunch reported earlier that the social media giant is building some sort of brain-computer interfaces for skin-hearing and typing. Facebook also revealed that it has 60 dedicated engineers working on this project. Facebook plans to use optical imaging to scan the human brain to gain a deeper knowledge of the human brain.
