OpenBCI, a Brooklyn-based neurotechnology company, announced it has secured investments from Bitkraft Ventures, re.Mind, and NaHCO3, the family office of Riot Games Co-Founder, Marc Merrill.
OpenBCI’s ultimate mission is to build the “operating system of the mind” by enabling automatic decoding of neural states to give immediate feedback to its users. Via an API, users have ultimate control of their neural data and can easily give outside parties access to their personal information that use cases span healthcare, research, and entertainment.
Founded in 2014, the bootstrapped company has been profitable since its inception, and this financing represents the first venture capital funding of the company. The investment will be used to scale the team to accelerate technological development and prepare Galea, OpenBCI’s latest product, for sale in early 2022.
Galea, developed in collaboration with Valve and Tobii, is the first add-on for AR and VR headsets that measures the user’s heart, skin, muscles, eyes, and brain. By combining this multi-modal sensor system with the immersion of augmented and virtual reality, Galea gives researchers, game developers, and creators a powerful new tool for understanding and augmenting the human mind and body.
In the future, Galea will be able to track a user’s emotional and mental physiology during gameplay and use this information to customize the elements of the game in real-time by adapting to emotions, altering who you talk to, and better understanding the user on an individual, highly personalized level.
Conor Russomanno, CEO and Founder of OpenBCI said:
“OpenBCI is creating more than brain-computer interfaces, but a window into all of a person’s physiology. Currently, neurotechnology has its applications primarily in B2B, but we are on track to bring this technology to the B2C market, which has never been before. With the backing of incredible investors, we will be able to build a future where a person’s brain will be able to use our technology to translate mental intent into action.”
Moritz Baier-Lentz, Partner at Bitkraft Ventures added:
“This is the first time technology of this calibre has been put into the commercial space, and it has a potential to transform how we engage with games we play, leading to a new level of immersion and customization.”