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Precision Neuroscience, an organization developing a tool to mind-control smartphones and computers, has raised $102 million because it competes with rivals including Elon Musk to develop the novel technology.
The New York-based company's latest investment round, which provides it a post-money valuation of about $500 million, exceeds the $75 million raised by Synchron, one other so-called brain-computer interface company (BCI).
The field remains to be dominated by Elon Musk's Neuralink, which has raised greater than $600 million, but recent funding suggests growing investor interest as plenty of corporations advance their first human trials.
BCI devices use various methods to gather signals from the brain, that are then interpreted using artificial intelligence and used to regulate computers. Neuralink, whose electrodes were implanted in two people, says its devices were used to play video games and manipulate computer-aided design software.
The first brain implants in humans date back twenty years, but recent advances in electronics to capture and transmit brain signals, in addition to within the machine learning needed to research and interpret the information, have raised hopes that the devices could soon be available medically useful.
“With AI systems, we now have the power to truly interpret data from the brain, model it and do it in real time,” said Howard Morgan, chairman of B Capital, a Precision backer. “We’re at some extent where it’s not too early (to take a position), but we’re now able to do things which are really clinically impactful.”
The device, from Precision, which was founded in 2021, has been utilized in 27 patients, but thus far it has only been temporarily implanted in people while they undergo neurosurgery. However, CEO Michael Mager claimed that Precision had already collected more brain data than some other company working in the sector, giving it a head start in learning methods to interpret the signals.
Morgan Stanley recently estimated that greater than 9 million people within the U.S. suffer from various types of upper limb impairment and other disabilities that might make them eligible for an implant, representing a complete market of $400 billion. However, it was predicted that annual revenue wouldn’t reach $1 billion per 12 months until 2041.
Precision, whose founders include neurosurgeon Ben Rappaport, a co-founder of Neuralink, makes a wafer-thin microelectrode array that’s inserted through a narrow slit within the skull and sits on the surface of the brain. She hopes that the relatively non-invasive procedure can eventually be offered to outpatients.
According to Morgan Stanley, the proliferation of brain-computer interfaces could possibly be hampered by a shortage of neurosurgeons able to handling implants, patients' reluctance to have a tool inserted into their brains, and government reluctance and health insurers to supply reimbursement will probably be slowed for the devices.
Mager said the power to regulate a pc together with your mind could give many severely disabled people a probability to re-enter the workforce. That would make a big difference to their lives and greater than justify the medical reimbursements, he said. Morgan Stanley estimated that the devices alone will ultimately cost $25,000 to $60,000 each, not including the price of implanting them or the continuing costs of collecting and analyzing the signals.
Musk said he founded Neuralink to create a way for humans to someday compete with advanced artificial intelligence. He believes that linking the brain to a pc could possibly be used to extend human memory and computing power and rival the performance of AI.
