Elon Musk has been facing a lot of backlash from his recent controversial remarks on X, formerly known as Twitter. This resulted in the company losing major advertisers, which also meant a loss in revenue. Lucky for him, he has several other companies that seem to be thriving, including Neuralink.
Neuralink's Raised Venture Capital
The company has been operational since it was founded in 2016, but it wasn't until recently that it reached a significant milestone as the FDA approved Neuralink for human clinical trials. The latest estimated value for the company was $5 billion back in June.
With the recent filing with the SEC, it was revealed that the brain implant company raised an additional $43 million in venture capital, going from $280 million to $323 million. Through Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, 32 investors contributed to this outcome, as per Tech Crunch.
This could also have something to do with the fact that a lot of people are already willing to participate in the human trial phase of the project. It was reported that thousands are already interested in receiving the implants.
It's important to understand that this isn't some simple trial. In order to test Neuralink's device, the participants will undergo craniectomy, which can take a couple of hours. It's necessary so that the implants can be installed in human subjects.
Neuralink plans on performing this surgery on 11 people by 2024, with an ambitious number of 22,000 by 2030. This is a big step for the brain-computer interface company, especially since it was rejected for human testing not too long ago for safety concerns.
Recruitment has already started back in September and the company is looking for volunteers who suffer from paralysis in all four limbs. The implant is meant to help people with neurological disorders and who have problems with motor functions.
Issues Within the Company
Even as the FDA approved human trials for the company, there are still a couple of issues linked to Neuralink. For instance, there have been complaints about Musk trying to rush the progress of the project, which can result in disaster for something that involves surgeries.
The author who wrote the 2015 biography "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," said that Neuralink has done 155 implantation surgeries using its own robot with animal subjects.
He added that Musk wanted the robot to perform its tasks faster and do so without human intervention. Neuralink's Director of Special Projects Shivon Zilis expressed that tests should be performed with caution, as per Business Insider.
In her statement, she said that they can't "blow up the first three," referring to SpaceX's failed rockets. That's not the only issue associated with Neuralink. There have been several allegations as well that the company has been mistreating its animal subjects.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine accused Neuralink of subjecting animal subjects to psychological distress and chronic infections due to surgeries, all of which are ue to Musk trying to rush the process to get results.
