Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp receives $27 mn in funding

Neuralink Corp, the startup co-founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has initiated the sale $100 million in stock to fund the development of technology that connects human brains with computers.

The San Francisco-based company has already received $27 million in funding, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk said via Twitter yesterday that Neuralink is not seeking outside investors.

Musk, 46, the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp is working on a number of other projects, including a venture to bore tunnels for roads or tube-based transportation systems known as the hyperloop. Another project another in the pipeline involves the responsible development of artificial intelligence.

In June, Musk said Neuralink ranked next in priority to much more demanding commitments to his automotive and rocket companies. ''Boring Co. is maybe 2 per cent of my time; Neuralink is 3 per cent to 5 per cent of my time; OpenAI is going to be a couple of per cent; and then 90-plus per cent is divided between SpaceX and Tesla,'' said Musk at the electric-car maker's annual shareholder meeting.

Not much is known about Neuralink. According to the company's website, it is ''developing ultra-high bandwith brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers.''

The company has listsed 12 unnamed investors in the filing and says that equity was first sold on 15 August, 2017.

Musk started Neuralink to link the human brain with computers by creating micron-sized devices for surgical implantation into the brain. The startup seeks to market a product that helps with certain severe brain injuries due to stroke and cancer lesion in about four years.