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Technology executives, venture capitalists and sovereign wealth investors are pouring money into a promising new growth area: the brain.
The influx of capital reflects growing enthusiasm about “brain-computer interface” technology, or B.C.I., which uses sensors to read neural signals and communicate the signals to devices that can produce speech or maneuver robotic limbs.
Perhaps the best-known company in this emerging industry is Neuralink, co-founded by Elon Musk a decade ago. But a handful of other start-ups are drawing enthusiasm — and big checks — from investors.
Among them is Precision Neuroscience, which is announcing on Thursday that it has raised $250 million in a new round of financing that values the company at just over $1 billion.
A key figure in the capital raise is the billionaire investor Bill Ackman. The funding includes $42.5 million from his Pershing Square investment firm and the Ackman Oxman Institute, a brain research center he recently founded in Manhattan with his wife, Neri Oxman. Mr. Ackman was inspired to create the center after his daughter suffered a brain hemorrhage and spent several weeks in a coma.
Precision, founded in 2021 and based in New York, has developed a B.C.I. device that is considered less invasive than the approach used by Neuralink. While Precision’s technology is still nascent, the hope is that it and other B.C.I. technologies will help patients with debilitating neurological illnesses or injuries function or communicate better.
“If you’re paralyzed — you’ve lost the ability for the brain to control the body — this is a way of extracting the neural signals at their source so that you can bypass the injury or the illness, or whatever has caused the paralysis, and use thought alone to control a computer,” Michael Mager, the chief executive of Precision, said in an interview.
B.C.I. technologies are still considered experimental. Some have clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to be made available to patients, usually on a temporary basis, but most B.C.I.s intended for long-term use are available only through clinical trials or other programs.
Precision, which gained F.D.A. clearance in 2025 for implants in place for up to 30 days, will use the latest round of funding to support efforts to secure the agency’s approval for permanent implants, Mr. Mager said. (That is likely to take years, he said.) The company has raised $430 million to date.
Money has flooded into the B.C.I. industry as investors have bet on what consultants at Kearney describe as “promising but high-risk space.” Many of these executives see a link between deepening understanding of the brain and expanding artificial intelligence capabilities.
Neuralink was valued at about $9.6 billion by private investors in June 2025, and is now reportedly accorded a valuation as high as $42 billion in the secondary markets. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are investors in Synchron, another competitor. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, founded a B.C.I. start-up, Merge Labs, last year.
Precision distinguishes itself from Neuralink partly in its approach to implantation: While Neuralink’s method involves installing electrodes below the brain’s surface, Precision’s device is effectively an ultrathin film, containing 1,024 electrodes, that sits on top of the cerebral cortex.
Less invasive approaches like Precision’s are generally considered safer because there is less risk of infection from invasive brain surgery or of scarring, experts say. Still, the potential advantage of Neuralink’s approach is that the electrodes can read signals from individual neurons, so some experts believe they have the potential to be more accurate.
One of Precision’s founders, Dr. Benjamin Rapoport, was also one of the founders of Neuralink.
Mr. Ackman said in an interview that Precision’s less invasive approach was part of what had drawn him to the company. He added that he believed the industry would have multiple successful companies.
“I’m a big believer in Elon Musk,” Mr. Ackman said. (ARK Invest, another investor in the round, is also an investor in Neuralink.)
B.C.I. and brain recovery will be a major focus for the Ackman Oxman Institute. Mr. Ackman announced the creation of the research center in August, buffered by an initial donation of around $400 million worth of Pershing Square stock.
Mr. Ackman said he had spent the last seven months doing a “deep dive” into neuroscience and had been introduced to Dr. Rapoport, a practicing surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital, through a neurosurgeon overseeing his daughter’s care. He expects the Ackman Oxman Institute to focus on initiatives including neuroscience research, rehabilitation and neurosurgery. It will also effectively serve as an accelerator for related start-ups. Precision is its first investment.
Precision says it has temporarily implanted its devices in more than 100 patients. It has active research partnerships with 18 medical systems.
Other investors in the round include Duquesne Family Office, the investment firm of the billionaire Stanley F. Druckenmiller, and Mubadala Capital.
Pam Belluck contributed reporting.