Science Corporation has implanted its PRIMA retinal chip in its first Stargardt disease patient, CEO Max Hodak announced at TechCrunch Disrupt. Only one participant's early rehabilitation has been reported so far, so this is a feasibility step for the extension.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 38%
- Operator
- Operator 22%
- Investor
- Investor 40%
Reality
- Evidence30
- Adoption15
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives65
- Confidence70
Bridge Neurotech launched with $13.5 million to build a non-surgical ultrasound brain-computer interface, aimed at people who will not accept a brain implant. The device trades the fast, direct neural signal that lets implant users move robotic arms and type for a slower reading taken from blood flow.
Reality
- Evidence50
- Adoption5
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives70
- Confidence60
Precision Neuroscience raised $250 million at just over a $1 billion valuation, $42.5 million of it from Bill Ackman's Pershing Square and his institute. The other $207.5 million came in undisclosed amounts, so the round names its generalist investors without showing what they paid.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption25
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives70
- Confidence60
SpaceX's second data center brought clusters online for a quarter of typical industry cost, as separate xAI site missed 99.9 percent uptime goal
Michael Nicolls moves over from Starlink to run the AI data centers, where mobile turbines and portable chillers bought speed at the cost of redundancy, and where Anthropic's $1.25bn-a-month lease can be cancelled.
Reality
- Evidence28
- Adoption60
- Hype gap+40
- Incentives70
- Confidence40
Five years to $100B: the private market now finishes compounding before the IPO bell
Forge's data puts today's AI cohort at $100 billion in about five years, against 16 for the SpaceX generation. The listing increasingly looks like an exit for someone else.
Publishers:forgeglobal.com
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption55
- Hype gap+34
- Incentives82
- Confidence44
A $499 body scan as a recruitment funnel for brain implants
Neko Health's consumer scan data would reportedly pre-screen candidates for Neuralink's PRIME trial. The interesting part is not the science, it is what the consent form has to cover.
Reality
- Evidence20
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+58
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence34
Ackman's $400M brain institute is a bet that universities have lost the recruiting war
The Ackman Oxman Institute is anchored in Pershing Square stock, housed in discounted Manhattan lab space, and structured to hire the researchers elite universities can no longer hold.
Reality
- Evidence34
- Adoption18
- Hype gap+46
- Incentives79
- Confidence52
The AI accounting startup raised $100mn led by ICONIQ and names Oracle, SAP, Workday, Microsoft and NetSuite as pre-AI relics. Its proof point is a finance team of three.
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption56
- Hype gap+34
- Incentives84
- Confidence58