Synchron Inc. raised $200 million to advance its work building brain implants that doctors can insert through blood vessels, avoiding the costly and high-risk surgeries necessary to install devices made by other rival companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
With the new funds, the company’s valuation is nearly $1 billion, a Synchron spokesperson said. That makes it the second-most valuable brain implant company after Neuralink, which investors think is worth more than $9 billion.
Several companies are building brain implants to allow people to communicate with computers directly through their minds, benefitting those who are paralyzed, blind or otherwise have limited use of their limbs or sensory organs. In the long term, some entrepreneurs and investors think that brain implants will become everyday consumer technology, like cellphones. No such devices are approved by government regulators for long-term medical or recreational use.
Most brain implants require invasive surgery, including cutting a hole in the skull. Meanwhile, Synchron’s flagship device, the Stentrode, sits in a blood vessel on top of the brain. It’s threaded into place through the circulatory system and doesn’t require brain surgery, meaning patients could get it from more doctors and hospitals.
‘It’s the first BCI platform designed for real-world adoption at scale,’ said Campbell Murray, co-founder and managing partner of Double Point Ventures, a health care investment firm that led the Series D funding round. As part of the investment, Murray is also joining the board.
Synchron will use the additional $200 million to run a clinical trial that could support regulatory approval in the United States, company spokesperson Kimberly Ha said. The company will need more money to actually commercialize and launch the device, Campbell said.
The Stentrode has been tested in 10 people so far, and sits near the part of the brain that generates movement, enabling the patients to control computers with their thoughts.
The company will also use the new funds to develop a version of the implant that will be able to access multiple brain regions, not just those associated with movement, Chief Executive Officer Tom Oxley said. This implant would also be inserted through the circulatory system.
‘We believe we have a breakthrough that is going to enable what, I think, no one thought possible and still thinks is not possible-to deliver a nonsurgical, high channel count, whole brain device,’ Oxley said.
To spearhead the development of this new device, Synchron hired Andy Rasdal, the former CEO of DexCom Inc., a continuous glucose monitor company, as well as Mark Brister, who worked in senior research and development roles at Dexcom, Inc., Medtronic Plc, and other companies. Rasdal and Brister will lead the project out of a new office Synchron recently opened in San Diego, Oxley said. Rasdal is also on Synchron’s board.
Synchron’s less invasive approach attracted the attention of several health care-focused investors and other funds, as well as IQT, a venture firm set up by the Central Intelligence Agency, which invests in companies with national security implications.
‘They approached us,’ Oxley said. IQT agrees that a less invasive approach for brain implants is better, and thinks that Synchron has the greatest potential to grow, Oxley said.
Synchron has no intentions to pursue military applications with the technology and is focused on medical uses, Oxley said.
IQT did not respond to a request for comment. The investment firm has disclosed only one other investment in a brain-computer interface company, Science Corp. That business, which was founded by former Neuralink President Max Hodak, is building retina implants to restore vision to people with conditions like macular degeneration, as well as implants that plug into the brain using engineered neurons instead of electrodes.