Boston-based neurotechnology company Neurable has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by M Ventures. Other participants were Innospark Ventures and existing investors such as Loup Ventures and Point Judith Capital. The new fund will allow Neurable to evolve past virtual reality (VR) applications and create “everyday” brain-computer interfaces: accessible, intuitive, and user-friendly products that will bring the benefits of neurotechnology to the masses.
The company’s next product will be a pair of consumer headphones that measure cognitive state and provide hands-free control for mobile devices.
Neurable first made news with its breakthrough technology that allows the user to control virtual reality (VR) with their mind. Since then, it co-developed a VR game with Red Bull that debuted at Red Bull’s Lollapalooza outpost in August 2019, created new EEG interpretation tools, and is now deploying its software tools in VR simulation training applications.
Neurable CEO Dr. Ramses Alcaide said his company’s transition from VR to broader applications is a natural one. “We are applying many of the same industry-leading machine learning techniques from our VR-based applications to our headphone prototypes,” he said. “By making a brain-computer interface in the form of headphones, we will be able to provide the benefits of Neurable’s technology to many more people.”
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Jamie Alders is Neurable’s Vice President of Product. He joined the company in 2018 and has twelve years of experience in engineering and product management at Bose. He said that a pair of headphones is an ideal brain-sensing wearable because millions of people already wear it on their heads every day. “Compared to other potential head-worn electronics form factors, headphones benefit from mature sales channels, seasoned supply chain, and proven customer value,” Alders said.
Neurable’s mission is to make technology universally accessible, intuitive, and empowering through advanced applications of neurotechnology, the company said. Dr. Alcaide describes the company’s vision: “Brain-computer interfaces will enable a world where you will communicate beyond the limits of today’s computer interfaces. For example, users will be able to send a text by thinking — instead of typing — and those texts will carry an emotional texture beyond the words of the message alone.”
