Venture Capital Funding for Brain-Computer Interfaces outstrips DARPA dollars | From the Interface

A group of 5 implantable brain computer interface (BCI) startups, including Musk’s Neuralink, are starting to pull in hundreds of millions of venture capital dollars. While Neuralink has attracted the most funding by far, it’s not the furthest ahead on human trials or FDA milestones.

The neurotechnology giant Blackrock’s $200 million fundraise from Tether in April 2024 marked a turning point in the way that brain-computer interfaces are funded. BCI research has been driven largely by DARPA, but venture capitalists are now starting to invest bigger sums into a field that will likely take decades to pay off. At the same time, the United States Congress cut the budget for NIH’s BRAIN initiative, indicating that more Neuroscience and neurotechnology research will need to be privately funded moving forward.

Neuralink has always been privately funded with a total of $680 million, but most BCI companies have benefited from government funding through various DARPA or NIH grants. Musk is credited with bringing attention and funding to the field and raising the funding numbers by an order of magnitude, to the benefit of other manufacturers, who have made more progress with human studies.

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