The Scoop
Elon Musk’s Neuralink raised $600 million in a deal that values the brain-mapping company at $9 billion before the new cash, people familiar with the matter said.
The startup was last valued at $3.5 billion in late 2023, according to Pitchbook, but has since implanted three chips into the brains of patients paralyzed or unable to speak. The most recent, a non-verbal Arizona man with ALS, posted a video on Musk’s X last month in which he speaks using the chip.
Bloomberg reported in April that Neuralink was looking to raise $500 million at a valuation of $8.5 billion. Jared Birchall, Neuralink’s CEO and the head of Musk’s investment office, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Know More
The value of Musk’s companies have soared over the last four years, though Neuralink remains one of the smaller parts of his empire. SpaceX raised money at a $180 billion valuation in August, but was valued on the secondary market at $350 billion by December 2024, according to PitchBook data. His newest venture, xAI, was worth $80 billion when it merged with X to create a combined company worth $113 billion.
Notable
- More volunteers are getting Neuralink’s brain implant, but the product will not yet ready to be released commercially, the MIT Technology Review wrote earlier this year.
- Musk wrote on X Tuesday: “Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms. I must be super focused on 𝕏/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out.”