Neuralink has just raised $650 million to push its brain implant technology deeper into clinical testing and, ultimately, into more human bodies.
The announcement, made Monday, is an aggressive move to scale its operations as trials expand across three countries.
Five people with severe paralysis are already testing the device. They’re using it not just to operate phones or computers, but to interact with the physical world, hands off, purely with thought.
The company, founded by Elon Musk in 2017, says the funding will help it meet demand from patients with unmet medical needs. “This funding helps us bring our technology to more people — restoring independence for those with unmet medical needs and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with brain interfaces,” Neuralink said.
The implant, a coin-sized chip linked to the brain by 64 ultra-thin threads, reads neural activity and translates it into commands that machines understand. That’s not new in neuroscience circles, but the scale, funding, and public ambition are unique.
So far, Neuralink’s trials are being run in three countries, but the company has not disclosed which. What’s evident is that these are not just lab-bound tests. The patients are engaging with digital and physical systems in ways that were previously unthinkable for people with paralysis.
Just last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave a “Breakthrough Device” designation to Neuralink’s speech-restoring technology. A similar tag had earlier been awarded to a vision-restoring device also under development. The FDA says this designation helps speed up access to high-impact devices by accelerating their development and review process.
Neuralink’s backers in this round read like a who’s who of venture capital: ARK Invest, DFJ Growth, Founders Fund, G42, Human Capital, Lightspeed, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and Vy Capital.
Last month, Semafor reported Neuralink had already pulled in $600 million at a valuation of $9 billion. The latest round will likely push that figure higher.
Meanwhile, Musk is juggling multiple tech bets. He recently announced he was stepping down as a special adviser to Donald Trump, choosing instead to focus on companies like Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, and the social platform X.
On that note, Morgan Stanley is reportedly arranging a $5 billion debt package for xAI, with plans for a $300 million share sale that could value the AI firm at $113 billion.
Back to Neuralink, this is not science fiction anymore. It’s a race to redefine what the brain can do when paired with machines. Other companies like Paradromics and Synchron are also moving quickly. Paradromics just implanted its own brain-computer interface into a human for the first time.
Musk once said he’d get the Neuralink chip implanted himself. That may have sounded like a wild stunt when he first said it, but with five humans already using it to move and communicate, it’s becoming hard to dismiss the idea outright.
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