How VCs are vying for a piece of your brain—literally

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How VCs are vying for a piece of your brain—literally

By? Rebecca Heilweil

An influx of funding for futuristic brain implant startups shows that the path forward for the technology, at least for now, doesn’t involve hooking everyone up to a computer. Rather, venture capital firms are throwing tens of millions of dollars into extremely expensive medical devices that will help people with specific health conditions—and almost certainly need to be covered by insurance.?

Of course, the idea of brain implants isn’t new. Movies like?The Happiness Cage?and?Johnny Mnemonic?have explored what a world full of partial cyborgs might look like. Researchers have spent decades studying how to safely install electronics into the human body, and have already demonstrated that brain implants can be used to?move robotic arms?and?speak through a computer.

The technology still isn’t common, though. Today, it’s reported that?fewer than 40 people?have received Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) that connect their minds to machines. The available implants are almost entirely experimental, and they’re generally not for sale. There are also plenty of concerns about brain implants, from the potential risk of infection to questions surrounding their cybersecurity and privacy protections.?Recent polling?shows that the general public isn’t enthusiastic about the idea of using brain implants to improve cognitive abilities, either.?

But that could soon change, thanks to a new crop of companies racing to bring brain implants into the mainstream. Startups like Precision Neuroscience and Synchron—along with Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface venture, Neuralink—are developing technology that could help people with conditions like quadriplegia, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. At the same time, these startups aim to compete in the lucrative medical devices industry by convincing private insurers, along with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, to pick up the cost of their products for patients. Executives might even charge for periodic software updates to the implants.?

“If we’re able to achieve our mission, I think it will be very hard to argue against providing a reasonable rate of reimbursement for this technology,” says Michael Mager, CEO and cofounder of Precision Neuroscience, a brain implant startup that was founded two years ago. “I fully anticipate it will be a fight. But I think it’s a fight that companies like ours ultimately will win.”

Venture capital firms are spending tens of millions in the hope that Mager is right.

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