Bridge Neurotech, a new brain-computer interface startup, has launched with $13.5 million in funding from General Catalyst and other investors. The company is positioning itself as a rival to Merge Labs, the Sam Altman-backed startup that spun out of the nonprofit Arbor Neuroscience in January. Bridge's founder and CEO, Will Biederman, previously developed the chip that Neuralink licensed for its first devices.
Unlike Neuralink and other implant makers, Bridge is developing a wearable device that uses ultrasound to measure blood flow in the brain as a proxy for neural activity. Biederman says the goal is to avoid the risks of neurosurgery, noting that only about 100 people worldwide have received an implanted brain-computer interface. The device is designed to sit on the temporal window, just above the ear, where the skull is thinnest.
Ultrasound-based interfaces face significant technical hurdles. Bone scatters sound, and because the signal is based on blood flow rather than direct neuron activity, there is a natural delay of a few seconds. Bridge plans to use predictive AI models to reduce that lag. The company has begun an observational clinical study in Redwood City, California, using probes built with chips from Butterfly Network.