Neuralinkthe company founded by Elon Musk that develops implantable chips that can read brain waves has raised an additional $43 million in venture capital, according to archiving with the SEC.
The filing released this week shows the company raised its previous tranche, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, from $280 million to $323 million in early August. Thirty-two investors participated, according to the filing.
Neuralink has not disclosed its valuation recently. But in June, Reuters mentionted that the company was valued at about $5 billion after private equity trading.
Founded in 2016, Neuralink has devised a sewing machine-like device capable of implanting ultra-thin threads into the brain. The threads are attached to a custom chip that contains electrodes that can read information from groups of neurons.
Brain signal reading implants are a decades old technology. But Neuralink’s apparent innovation lies in making the implants wireless and increasing the number of implanted electrodes.
In May, Neuralink received FDA approval for human clinical trials after its application was previously denied, and opened its first human trials to recruitment under an FDA investigational device exemption.
But Neuralink has come under increasing scrutiny for what critics claim is a toxic workplace culture — and unethical research practices.
In January 2022 article to Fortune, unnamed former employees described a “culture of guilt and fear”—one in which Musk often undermined management by encouraging junior employees to “email him directly with issues and complaints.” As of August 2020, only three of the eight founding scientists remained at the company, as a result of news from Stat piece described as “an internal conflict in which hurried timetables … clash with the slow and gradual pace of science”.
In 2022, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) alleged that Neuralink and its one-time research partner UC Davis had mistreated several monkeys involved in testing Neuralink hardware – subjecting them to psychological distress and chronic infections due to surgical procedures. interventions. References from both Reuters and Wired The proposed tests were rushed because of Musk’s demands for quick results, which led to complications with electrode placement — including partial paralysis and brain swelling.
For nearly a year, Neuralink has been under federal investigation by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for animal welfare violations. The USDA ultimately concluded that there was “no evidence” of animal welfare violations in the startup’s testing aside from a previous, self-reported incident from 2019 — but PCRM disputed the investigation’s results.
In November 2023, US lawmakers are asking the SEC to investigate Neuralink for omitting details about the deaths of at least a dozen animals in which its implants were surgically placed.
