Elon Musk’s brain implant startup raises $280 million

Neuralink, a startup founded by Elon Musk to develop brain implants, announced via X (formerly, Twitter) on Tuesday that the company raised 280 million U.S. dollars. The amount is twice more than the total investment of 143 million dollars raised by neurotech startups from January to June this year.

The industry believes that the major driver of the new fund was Neuralink obtaining approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical trials in May this year. Neuralink is a startup founded by Musk in 2016 and is currently developing chips to be implanted in the brain. It plans to implant chips into the brain of patients who are quadriplegic or paraplegic to allow them to use the computer with just thoughts. “I expect to see the first patient to participate in the clinical trial by the end of this year,” said Musk at a VivaTech conference in Paris in June.

However, some believe that the need to drill a hole into the skull to implant chips will be a barrier against the patients’ decision for Neuralink’s implant. One of the major competitors of Neuralink, Synchron, is trying to develop the brain with the computer by the method of endovascular surgery. Synchron was approved for clinical trials in 2021 and announced that it successfully implanted chips into seven patients in February this year.


jwchoi@donga.com