Once a Melbourne university spin-out, now a billion-dollar U.S. medtech, Synchron has secured $308 million to accelerate brain-computer interfaces — and Australia’s government is paying to bring it home.
Key Takeaways
- Australia’s government venture arm, the National Reconstruction Fund, chipped in $54 million for the now Brooklyn-headquartered company.
- The Series D round was led by Double Point Ventures, alongside existing investors ARCH Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Bezos Expedition, NTI and METIS.
- If it was still an Australian company, Synchron’s $308 million raise would be the largest bio-med capital raise in the country’s history.
- The money is earmarked to finish clinical trials and accelerate commercialisation of the company’s first-generation Stentrode BCI platform.
- The money will also go towards developing in-brain hardware that will “leapfrog” Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Synchron co-founder Tom Oxley tells Forbes Australia.
- The financing brings Synchron’s total funding to $545 million [US$345 million, valuing the company at “about US$1 billion”], barely a quarter of the $2 billion [US$1.3 billion] raised by its competitor, Neuralink.
Key Background
Synchron’s brain computer interface was developed by founders Tom Oxley, a neurologist and brain surgeon, and Nick Opie, a professor of bio-medical engineering in 2011.
Synchron spun out of the University of Melbourne in 2012, but relocated its headquarters to Brooklyn in 2016.
It had its first devices in humans, operating their computers with only their thoughts, by 2019, five years ahead of Musk’s Neuralink.
Read More – Elephas Biosciences Raises $40M in Series B-2 Funding
- Advertisement -
