Neuralink, the company founded by Elon Musk that is working on developing implantable chips capable of reading brain waves, has raised an additional $43 million in venture capital, according to a report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Details of the General Assembly
The report published this week indicates that the company increased its previous stake, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, from $280 million to $323 million in early August. A total of 32 investors participated in the general assembly, according to the report.
Neuralink has not recently disclosed its valuation. However, in June, Reuters reported that the company was valued at around $5 billion after private stock trading.
Neuralink Technology
Founded in 2016, Neuralink has developed a device resembling a sewing machine capable of implanting ultra-thin threads inside the brain. These threads connect to a specially designed chip that contains electrodes capable of reading information from clusters of neurons.
Brain implants for reading brain signals are decades-old technology. However, Neuralink’s innovative twist is in making the implants wireless and increasing the number of implanted electrodes.
Criticism of Neuralink
Amid rising criticism directed at Neuralink for what critics describe as a toxic work culture and unethical research practices.
In a January 2022 article in Fortune magazine, former employees who wished to remain anonymous described a “culture of blame and fear” – where Musk would frequently undermine management by encouraging junior employees to “directly send problems and complaints to him.” By August 2020, only three of the eight founding scientists remained at the company, due to what a statistical news piece described as “an internal struggle where urgent timelines conflicted with the slow and gradual pace of science.”
In 2022, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) accused Neuralink and the University of California, Davis, its former research partner, of mishandling numerous monkeys involved in testing Neuralink devices – exposing them to psychological stress and chronic infections as a result of surgeries. Reports from Reuters and Wired indicated that the tests were conducted hastily due to Musk’s demands for quick results, leading to complications in electrode implantation – including partial paralysis and brain swelling.
For nearly a year, Neuralink was under federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding animal welfare violations. Ultimately, the USDA concluded that there was no “evidence” of animal welfare violations in the startup’s experiments except for a prior incident it reported itself in 2019 – but the PCRM questions the findings of the investigation.
In November 2023, U.S. law requested the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Neuralink for omitting details regarding the deaths of dozens of animals that were surgically implanted with its devices.
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