What are the top brain-computer interface startups by total funding raised?

Top startups in the brain-computer interface market ranked by total funding raised

Here is an updated table that ranks the top startups in the brain-computer interface market based on the total amount of funding they have raised to date.

The table also includes the total number of funding rounds, the date and size of the latest round, the financing type (e.g. Series A, equity financing), key investors, the startup’s current status (active, IPO, acquired, or shut down), and a confidence score based on the data collected (we excluded startups with very low data confidence, to make sure everything is reliable).

If you need to dig deeper and get more detailed data, please check our report on neurotech funding, valuations and who's ahead.

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Which brain-computer interface startups have raised the most funding?

Neuralink is still the best-funded brain-computer interface startup by a wide margin, but the gap behind it has narrowed quickly as several BCI companies have raised rounds above $200 million.

Neuralink has raised roughly $1.3 billion in equity funding based on the reconstructed financing history in our dataset, including its $650 million Series E announced in 2025. That single round was larger than the entire cumulative funding of almost every other private BCI company. One round bigger than most rivals' total funding is lopsided, and we follow where the biggest rounds are going in our report on neurotech.

Behind Neuralink, the picture has changed substantially. Science Corporation said after its latest $230 million Series C that it had raised approximately $490 million since 2021. Precision Neuroscience says its $250 million Series D brought total capital raised to approximately $430 million. BrainCo completed a roughly $288 million financing round and has accumulated several earlier financings. Synchron's $200 million Series D took its cumulative financing well above $300 million.

Saluda Medical also belongs near the top if we use a broad neural-interface definition, although it is primarily a closed-loop spinal-cord stimulation company and is now publicly traded. Its financing history includes a $150 million private equity round in 2023, another substantial private raise before its listing, and approximately $150 million raised through its ASX IPO.

The ranking has two clear layers today: Neuralink on its own at the top, followed by a growing group of companies in roughly the $300 million to $500 million range.

Company	Approx. cumulative funding	Recent major financing	Main approach
Neuralink	~$1.3B	$650M Series E	Implantable cortical BCI
Saluda Medical	~$680M	~$150M IPO	Closed-loop spinal neuromodulation
Science Corporation	~$490M	$230M Series C	Retinal and neural implants
Precision Neuroscience	~$430M	$250M Series D	Cortical surface BCI
BrainCo	>$369M and likely higher	~$288M financing	BCI wearables and neuroprosthetics
MindMaze	~$348M	Later strategic financing	Neurorehabilitation
Synchron	~$325M	$200M Series D	Endovascular BCI
Ceribell	>$300M incl. IPO capital	~$207M gross IPO proceeds	EEG seizure detection
NeuroPace	~$278M reported historically	Public-market financing	Responsive neurostimulation
Merge Labs	$252M	$252M seed	Ultrasound / next-gen BCI

How much funding has Neuralink raised?

Neuralink has raised roughly $1.3 billion in cumulative funding, making it the financial heavyweight of the BCI market today.

The biggest step came with Neuralink's $650 million Series E. The company disclosed participation from ARK Invest, DFJ Growth, Founders Fund, G42, Human Capital, Lightspeed, Qatar Investment Authority, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, Valor Equity Partners and Vy Capital.

The round came after Neuralink had moved beyond animal demonstrations into human clinical studies across several countries, and gave the company substantially more capital to deploy than most of its BCI competitors.

For perspective, the $650 million Series E alone was more than Science Corporation's entire disclosed funding before its latest raise, more than twice Synchron's cumulative financing in our dataset, and six and a half times Nudge's $100 million Series A.

That financial lead gives Neuralink room to fund implants, custom chips, surgical robotics, clinical operations, manufacturing and software under one roof.

Is Neuralink running away with the BCI funding race?

Neuralink leads the BCI funding race comfortably, although it no longer looks like the only company capable of raising enormous amounts of money.

Using the approximately $1.3 billion cumulative figure in our reconstructed dataset, Neuralink has raised roughly three times as much as Precision Neuroscience and around 2.5 times Science Corporation's latest disclosed total.

The second tier is becoming much stronger. Precision added $250 million in one round. Science added $230 million. Synchron raised $200 million. Merge Labs launched with $252 million before proving a commercial business. BrainCo secured roughly $288 million in one financing event. Nine-figure checks at several companies at once are big bets, and we look at which investors make them in our neurotech market report.

Those five financings together represent more than $1.2 billion of capital. Competitors have collectively attracted almost another Neuralink's worth of funding through a relatively small number of recent transactions.

Neuralink still has the clear company-level lead. What has changed is that investors are now willing to place $100 million to $300 million bets on several competing BCI architectures.

How much has Science Corporation raised?

Science Corporation says it has raised approximately $490 million since it was founded, putting it among the best-funded private BCI companies in the world.

Its latest $230 million Series C materially changes its position in the ranking. The round included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, IQT and Quiet Capital, among others.

Science is especially interesting because its funding is tied to a relatively concrete medical pathway. Its PRIMA retinal implant is designed to restore functional vision in people with severe retinal disease, and the company has been pushing toward regulatory approval and commercialization rather than building only a general-purpose research platform.

The $490 million company-disclosed total is also higher than the $416 million figure in the initial dataset. For a cumulative funding ranking, we use the newer company-supported figure.

Has Precision Neuroscience suddenly become one of the best-funded BCI companies?

Yes. Precision Neuroscience has moved into the top group of BCI startups after closing a $250 million Series D that brought its disclosed total funding to roughly $430 million.

Precision's latest round was co-led by Pershing Square, the Ackman Oxman Institute and a major life-sciences investor. Other participants included B Capital, ARK Invest, Invus, Mubadala Capital, Mirae Asset Capital, Korea Investment Partners and Hitachi Ventures.

The size of the round is striking partly because Precision was founded only in 2021. Its earlier rounds were much smaller: roughly $12 million at Series A, $41 million at Series B and about $102 million at Series C before the latest financing.

The company has therefore raised close to 60% of all its capital in its latest round alone.

Precision also says its technology has already been used in more than 100 patient procedures across 18 medical institutions. Investors were backing a company with accumulated clinical usage and FDA clearance for temporary use of its Layer 7 cortical interface, rather than a purely laboratory-stage concept.

Precision Neuroscience round	Approx. amount
Series A	$12M
Series B	$41M
Series C	~$102M
Series D	$250M
Total disclosed capital	~$430M
Share of total coming from Series D	~58%
Patient procedures reported by company	>100
Medical institutions reported by company	18

Is Synchron still one of Neuralink's biggest competitors?

Synchron remains one of the best-funded and most credible implantable BCI challengers, with about $325 million in cumulative funding in our dataset and a $200 million Series D as its latest major financing.

The $200 million round is particularly important because Synchron uses a fundamentally different implantation strategy from Neuralink. Its Stentrode system is delivered through blood vessels rather than through open-brain electrode implantation.

Investors are therefore financing competing answers to one of the industry's hardest questions: how invasive does a useful high-bandwidth neural interface actually need to be? Investors back rival answers on how invasive an implant must be, and we ask who the likely future winners are in our report covering neurotech.

Synchron's latest financing accounts for roughly three-fifths of its cumulative capital in our dataset. One $200 million late-stage round was enough to move it past dozens of older neurotechnology companies.

It still trails Neuralink substantially in total capital, but it has enough funding to remain a serious independent path toward clinically useful implantable BCI.

How big was BrainCo's latest funding round?

BrainCo raised roughly RMB 2 billion, around $288 million, in one of the largest BCI financings ever completed outside the United States.

The round included IDG Capital, Walden International, Lens Technology and other strategic and financial investors. Chinese reporting also described Lens Technology as a manufacturing partner for BrainCo's core hardware.

A single financing placed BrainCo in the same round-size league as Science, Precision, Synchron and Merge Labs.

There is some uncertainty around BrainCo's exact cumulative equity total because public databases disagree and Chinese financing disclosures do not always provide the complete history in the same format as U.S. filings. Our data puts the total above $369 million, while some venture databases calculate considerably more after incorporating additional rounds.

The useful takeaway is straightforward: BrainCo has already raised several hundred million dollars, and its recent $288 million transaction ranks among the largest financings in the BCI sector.

What are the largest BCI funding rounds so far?

Neuralink's $650 million Series E is the clear standout, but a surprising number of BCI companies have now closed individual rounds above $100 million.

BrainCo's roughly $288 million financing, Merge Labs' $252 million seed round, Precision Neuroscience's $250 million Series D, Science Corporation's $230 million Series C and Synchron's $200 million Series D form a second cluster.

Blackrock Neurotech also received a $200 million strategic investment from Tether in 2024. Nudge raised $100 million at Series A. Saluda Medical has completed multiple nine-figure financings, including $150 million of equity in 2023 and an IPO that raised approximately another $150 million.

An industry once financed mainly through $10 million to $50 million specialist MedTech rounds now regularly produces nine-figure deals.

Company	Large financing	Round / transaction
Neuralink	$650M	Series E
BrainCo	~$288M	Major private financing
Merge Labs	$252M	Seed
Precision Neuroscience	$250M	Series D
Science Corporation	$230M	Series C
Synchron	$200M	Series D
Blackrock Neurotech	$200M	Strategic investment
Saluda Medical	$150M	Private equity round
Nudge	$100M	Series A

Are BCI funding rounds getting much bigger?

Yes. BCI financing has moved into a much larger capital regime, with several recent rounds that would have looked exceptional only a few years ago.

Kernel's $53 million Series C in 2020 was considered a substantial neurotechnology financing at the time. INBRAIN's $50 million Series B in 2024 was still a large specialist MedTech round. Newronika raised €13.6 million in its 2025 Series B.

Then came $100 million for Nudge at Series A, $200 million for Synchron, $230 million for Science, $250 million for Precision, $252 million for a newly launched Merge Labs, approximately $288 million for BrainCo and $650 million for Neuralink. Rounds climbing from $100 million to $650 million are worth tracking quarter by quarter, as we do in our neurotech report.

The upper end has shifted dramatically relative to the classic $10 million to $50 million neurotech financing, and it is happening across several technical approaches rather than around Neuralink alone.

Is BCI funding concentrated in only a few companies?

BCI funding is extremely concentrated: a small group of companies controls most of the capital raised across the market.

Taking the top 20 companies in our ranking and applying the updated figures we could verify for Science and Precision gives roughly $6 billion of cumulative capital, depending on how IPO proceeds and uncertain Chinese rounds are treated.

The five largest names account for roughly half of that amount. The top ten approach four-fifths.

Below the leaders, funding drops quickly. INBRAIN has raised $68 million. Axoft has raised more than $60 million. Newronika is around the tens-of-millions level. Many younger BCI companies remain below $20 million.

There are dozens of startups in the market, but the money is much less evenly distributed than the company count suggests.

Are implantable BCI startups attracting more money than non-invasive ones?

Implantable and clinically invasive BCI companies still capture most of the largest cumulative funding totals, although ultrasound is starting to challenge that pattern.

Neuralink, Precision Neuroscience, Synchron, Science Corporation, Blackrock Neurotech, Paradromics and INBRAIN all sit high in the funding ranking and depend on implanted or intervention-heavy neural-interface technology.

These systems require expensive clinical trials, regulatory work, surgical development, specialized manufacturing, biocompatibility testing and long development timelines. Their capital requirements naturally look more like advanced medical-device companies than software startups.

Recent non-invasive financings are weakening the old divide. Nudge raised $100 million for a focused-ultrasound brain interface. Merge Labs raised $252 million while pursuing a combination of ultrasound, biology and AI. Gestala disclosed roughly $84 million in cumulative funding after two rounds built around ultrasound BCI technology.

Implants still dominate accumulated capital, but ultrasound has become one of the strongest new fundraising categories.

Why are investors suddenly putting so much money into ultrasound BCIs?

Ultrasound BCIs are attracting unusually large investments because they promise access to deeper brain regions without requiring a permanent electrode implant.

Nudge's $100 million Series A is the clearest example. The company says it is developing focused ultrasound capable of targeting deep-brain structures with millimeter-scale precision while avoiding surgery. Reaching deep-brain targets without surgery would widen the user base, and we map where the biggest opportunities are in our report on neurotech.

Merge Labs pushed the funding level much further with $252 million at launch. OpenAI publicly described BCIs as an important new computing frontier and said it would work with Merge on scientific foundation models and systems capable of interpreting neural intent.

China has produced its own cluster. Gestala disclosed approximately $84 million across two rounds, including a roughly $62 million Angel+ financing. BCI-Sonics, Neurorevix, Sisheng Technology and other younger Chinese companies in our ranking are also pursuing ultrasound-based neural interfaces.

If ultrasound eventually delivers useful read-and-write access to the brain without implanted hardware, the addressable user base could be far broader than for a surgically implanted medical device. The technical question is still very open, but investors are already funding the attempt.

Are medical BCI startups raising more money than consumer BCI companies?

Medical BCIs are attracting far more capital than consumer EEG companies at the top end of the market.

Neuralink initially targets people with paralysis. Synchron targets severe motor impairment. Science is working on vision restoration. Precision is building clinical cortical interfaces. Blackrock Neurotech has decades of implantable neural-interface work. INBRAIN focuses on therapeutic applications. NeuroPace treats epilepsy.

These companies regularly appear in the $50 million to several-hundred-million-dollar funding range.

Consumer EEG companies generally sit much lower. Neurable has raised meaningful capital and closed a $35 million Series A, but that remains far below the largest implantable BCI rounds. NeuroSky's reported cumulative financing is around $19 million in our dataset. IDUN Technologies and OpenBCI remain in the low-single-digit millions based on publicly disclosed equity rounds.

The consumer side can reach market faster, but investors have so far been willing to place much larger bets on medical platforms addressing severe conditions with medical-device economics.

Is China catching the United States in BCI funding?

China is rapidly becoming the second major BCI funding ecosystem, although the United States still dominates the very top of the ranking.

BrainCo's roughly $288 million financing showed that Chinese BCI companies can now raise at a scale comparable with major U.S. players. The dataset also contains bciflex Medical at at least $168 million, StairMed above $120 million, Neuracle Technology near $100 million, Gestala at $84 million and several emerging companies in the $20 million to $50 million range.

The pipeline is broad too. Chinese funding is going into invasive implants, flexible electrodes, rehabilitation systems, ultrasound interfaces, neural-interface chips and non-invasive decoding.

The United States still has the deeper group of giant financings. Neuralink, Science, Precision, Synchron, Merge, Blackrock, Nudge, Paradromics and Axoft alone represent several billion dollars of capital.

But the market can no longer be described credibly as a Silicon Valley-only race.

Who are the biggest investors in brain-computer interface startups?

There is no single dominant BCI investor. Instead, a relatively small circle of major venture firms, healthcare investors, strategic companies and sovereign-backed funds keeps appearing across the leading startups.

Khosla Ventures is one of the clearest recurring names. It has backed Science Corporation, Synchron, Kernel and other neurotechnology businesses. ARK Invest appears in both Neuralink and Precision Neuroscience. Founders Fund backed Neuralink and is also associated with the investor group around Merge Labs. Lightspeed appears in major neural-interface deals including Neuralink and Science. The same investors keep appearing across deals, and we look at who is funding whom in our neurotech funding report.

The investor base is becoming more diverse as rounds grow. Precision attracted Pershing Square, Mubadala Capital, Korean investors and corporate venture capital. Blackrock received $200 million from Tether. Paradromics brought in NEOM Investment Fund. BrainCo's latest round combined traditional venture capital with Chinese technology and manufacturing companies.

Large BCI rounds are now drawing capital from generalist venture firms, sovereign funds, billionaires, technology companies, healthcare investors and strategic manufacturers, not just specialist neuroscience funds.

Is AI money starting to flow into BCI startups too?

Yes. The boundary between AI investing and BCI investing is becoming increasingly visible, particularly around companies that want neural interfaces to become a new computing layer.

Merge Labs makes that connection explicit. OpenAI participated in its $252 million seed financing and said it plans to collaborate with the company on AI systems capable of interpreting noisy neural signals and user intent.

Neuralink's ambitions have also expanded beyond traditional medical neurotechnology toward broader human-computer interaction, even though its first clinical applications remain medical.

Precision has hired deeply into AI and neural decoding, while Science, Synchron and other implant developers increasingly rely on machine learning to interpret large volumes of biological signal data.

Hardware, neuroscience, clinical development and regulation remain central, but investors can increasingly view BCIs as infrastructure for future human-AI interaction as well as medical devices. That broader story helps explain why Merge could raise $252 million immediately.

Is a $252 million seed round for Merge Labs normal?

No. Merge Labs' $252 million seed financing is extraordinary even by current BCI standards.

Most BCI startups historically began with seed rounds in the single-digit or low-double-digit millions. Egra AI raised around $6 million. Elemind raised $12 million. Coherence Neuro raised $10 million in its later seed financing. Axoft started much smaller before eventually raising a $55 million Series A.

Merge effectively started with more capital than Blackrock Neurotech's $200 million strategic investment and more than the entire disclosed cumulative funding of many companies that have spent a decade developing neurotechnology.

The investor group and founding team explain part of the exception. OpenAI participated, Sam Altman is a co-founder in a personal capacity, and the scientific team includes researchers with established BCI credentials. Bloomberg reported approximately $252 million raised, while OpenAI publicly confirmed its participation and technical collaboration.

Merge should not be used as a normal early-stage BCI funding benchmark. It launched more like a heavily capitalized research lab than a conventional seed-stage startup.

Which BCI startups have raised major funding most recently?

The recent BCI financing pipeline remains unusually active, with Precision Neuroscience, Science Corporation, BrainCo, Axoft, Gestala and several Chinese companies all completing meaningful rounds.

Precision's $250 million Series D is the largest recent verified round among established BCI startups after Neuralink's giant Series E. Science added $230 million. BrainCo raised approximately $288 million. Axoft raised $55 million and said total funding had exceeded $60 million. Gestala disclosed a roughly $62 million Angel+ round after an earlier $22 million financing.

China's newer BCI cohort also includes multiple companies announcing early-stage rounds in the tens of millions of dollars or RMB-equivalent financing.

The important pattern is repetition. Large financings now keep appearing across different BCI technologies and geographies.

Company	Recent disclosed financing	Stage
Precision Neuroscience	$250M	Series D
Science Corporation	$230M	Series C
BrainCo	~$288M	Major private round
Gestala	~$62M	Angel+
Axoft	$55M	Series A
BCI-Sonics	~$28M	Pre-A
Neurosoft Bioelectronics	~$8M	Seed
UCANACT	~$920K	Pre-seed

Does raising more money mean a BCI company is technologically ahead?

No. Funding tells us how much financial backing a BCI company has secured. Technical leadership depends on clinical results, signal quality, safety, regulatory progress, manufacturability and what the system can actually let people do.

Neuralink combines large funding with visible technical progress, so its position is easy to understand.

Other comparisons are less straightforward. Synchron has raised much less than Neuralink but has spent years testing an endovascular implant in humans. Precision has now raised approximately $430 million and reported more than 100 procedures, though many involved temporary cortical placement rather than a permanently implanted commercial product. Raised money and real progress are different things; we compare who is ahead and who is falling behind in our neurotech report.

Blackrock Neurotech has a long history of human intracortical research even though its cumulative outside funding is far below Neuralink's. NeuroPace has a commercially available responsive neurostimulation system despite appearing below younger private companies in a venture-funding ranking.

Funding is best read as financial capacity and investor conviction. It can accelerate development, but it cannot substitute for clinical evidence.

Why do companies like Ceribell, Saluda and NeuroPace complicate the BCI market ranking?

Ceribell, Saluda Medical and NeuroPace sit close enough to BCI technology to matter, but they are primarily commercial neurotechnology or neuromodulation companies rather than direct versions of Neuralink.

Ceribell sells rapid EEG systems used to detect seizures. Its IPO raised about $207 million in gross proceeds after the underwriters fully exercised their option, and it has become a publicly traded commercial MedTech company.

Saluda Medical develops closed-loop spinal cord stimulation. Its system senses neural activity and adjusts stimulation, making it relevant to neural interfaces, though its primary market is chronic-pain neuromodulation.

NeuroPace's RNS System records brain activity and responds to abnormal electrical patterns to treat epilepsy. It is a bidirectional closed-loop neural device, yet its commercial purpose is therapeutic neuromodulation rather than general computer control.

We keep these companies in a broad neural-interface funding landscape, while distinguishing them from direct BCI platforms such as Neuralink, Synchron or Precision.

Are older BCI companies being left behind by the new funding boom?

Some are. The recent funding wave has created an enormous capital gap between newer winners and several companies that were once among the best-known names in BCI.

Kernel raised $53 million from external investors in 2020 after founder Bryan Johnson had already committed roughly $54 million himself. A $107 million cumulative figure once made it one of the better-funded non-invasive neurotechnology companies.

Today, a single Nudge Series A matches almost that entire amount.

CTRL-labs raised roughly $67 million before Meta acquired it. NeuroSky accumulated around $19 million according to the dataset. OpenBCI has disclosed only a few million dollars of external financing while building a widely used open-source biosensing ecosystem.

The older companies did not suddenly lose their technology or relevance. The capital scale around them changed. Once $200 million to $300 million rounds became possible, funding rankings started favoring companies pursuing expensive clinical programs, manufacturing scale or more ambitious neural-interface architectures.

Why are BCI companies able to raise hundreds of millions before large-scale revenue?

BCI companies can need enormous amounts of capital long before they have anything resembling software-style recurring revenue.

Implantable BCI development requires specialized chips, electrodes, packaging, surgical procedures, clinical sites, regulatory submissions, manufacturing and years of testing. Specialized chips, electrodes, surgery and years of testing make this hard, and we go through the biggest unsolved problems in our report on neurotech.

Science raised $230 million while its PRIMA retinal implant was still moving through regulatory and commercialization work. Precision raised $250 million while expanding clinical use and pursuing further regulatory steps. Synchron raised $200 million as it moves toward commercialization of its implant platform.

Nudge shows the same dynamic without an implant. The company raised $100 million while still developing and testing its focused-ultrasound platform.

The bet is that a successful platform for paralysis, blindness, neurological disease or eventually broader human-computer interaction could become valuable enough to justify years of expensive pre-revenue development.

Which BCI funding deals look most unusual?

Merge Labs, Neuralink and BrainCo stand out for different reasons.

Merge is unusual because $252 million arrived at seed stage. Neuralink is unusual because its $650 million Series E exceeds the entire funding history of nearly every competitor. BrainCo is unusual because a roughly $288 million Chinese private round reached the same scale as the largest U.S. neurotech growth rounds.

Nudge's $100 million Series A is another outlier. Series A financing of that size normally requires either exceptional founders, unusually expensive technology or strong investor conviction that the company needs large-scale research infrastructure from the beginning.

Blackrock Neurotech's $200 million Tether investment also differs from a conventional venture round. One strategic investor supplied an amount comparable with the latest rounds of much larger venture syndicates.

BCI financing is becoming less standardized. Certain companies are being capitalized according to technical ambition rather than the traditional seed-Series A-Series B progression.

Who is actually winning the BCI funding race right now?

Neuralink is winning the BCI funding race today, but it finally has a serious group of well-capitalized challengers behind it.

Neuralink's roughly $1.3 billion cumulative funding still gives it a financial position no other pure-play implantable BCI startup currently matches. Its $650 million Series E alone places it in another category.

Behind Neuralink, Science Corporation is now around $490 million based on its own disclosure, Precision Neuroscience around $430 million, BrainCo has raised several hundred million dollars, Synchron sits above $300 million, and Merge Labs entered the market with $252 million immediately.

Several billion dollars have now been committed across the largest companies in the ranking, with much of that money concentrated in a relatively small number of platforms. Nine-figure rounds have become recurring events.

Funding still cannot tell us which technology will ultimately work best. An endovascular, surface-electrode, retinal, ultrasound or another approach could eventually prove easier to scale than the best-funded architecture.

But on the narrow question of investor capital, the answer is clear: Neuralink remains number one, while BCI has evolved into a genuine multi-company funding race.