Musk Company Neuralink Raises Additional Capital
Neuralink, the American businessman Elon Musk, researches brain implants that can communicate with devices and has extra cash in hand.
Neuralink wants to develop a wearable chip that can be placed behind the ear. This should ensure that information read by tiny wires in the brain can be transmitted wirelessly to a smartphone or a computer. Unfortunately, the wearable pictured here is a representation of something that doesn’t exist yet.
The company raised $205 million, money from Google and fledgling investors such as Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund (PayPal).
The additional funds are intended to accelerate research and ultimately commercialize the first products, Neuralink said in a blog post.
Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Musk to allow the human brain to communicate with, for example, a PC or smartphone. Specifically, they want to plant an (invisible) chip in the brain for this.
The company’s first product, dubbed N1, should enable paralyzed people to control their PCs remotely. Last year, Musk, also the man behind car manufacturer Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX, demonstrated a prototype of the implant in a pig.
