Neuralink (company brief)
Official site → Fremont, CA, USA
Neuralink is one of the highest-profile brain–computer interface (BCI) companies. It is building an implantable, wireless intracortical recording system and a surgical robot intended to place fine electrode “threads” into cortex. The company’s stated early medical focus is helping people with severe paralysis control digital devices.
This is a company brief: what can be supported by public sources, what is uncertain, and what to watch.
At a glance
- Website: https://neuralink.com/
- Headquarters (public listings): Fremont, California (USA). (LinkedIn lists Fremont, CA as HQ; MapQuest lists a Fremont location.)
- MapQuest listing: https://www.mapquest.com/us/california/neuralink-corp-458353238
- Company type: privately held (per LinkedIn). (Private companies typically do not publish audited revenue.)
- LinkedIn company page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/neuralink/
- Employees (best-effort public signal): LinkedIn lists company size 201–500 and also shows a “discover all 625 employees” link at time of access. Treat this as an approximate social-network count, not an audited headcount.
What they are building (technical description)
Neuralink’s public descriptions point to a system with three major pieces:
- Implant (intracortical recording hardware)
- A brain implant intended to record neural activity (and transmit data wirelessly to external devices).
- Surgical robot
- A robotic system designed to insert electrode threads with high precision.
- Decoding/software layer
- Software that maps recorded neural signals to control of a cursor and other device actions.
In plain terms: record spikes in motor-related cortex → decode intent → move a cursor.
What they’ve done recently (publicly reported)
First human implant (reported)
News reporting in early 2024 describes the first human implant and the beginning of human testing.
- Fox Business report (Jan 2024) describes Musk stating the first human received an implant and that early results showed “neuron spike detection.”
Trials + participant counts (reported)
Reuters reporting in mid‑2025 states Neuralink had begun clinical trials across multiple countries and that patients were using the system to control devices.
- Reuters (June 2025): reports Neuralink raised $650M and states five patients with severe paralysis were using Neuralink to control digital and physical devices with their thoughts; it also mentions FDA “breakthrough” device tags for speech and vision restoration devices.
Production / automation goals (reported)
- Reuters (Dec 2025 / Jan 2026): reports Musk stated Neuralink would start “high‑volume production” of BCI devices and move to an “entirely automated surgical procedure” in 2026.
Money: revenue vs funding (what we can and can’t say)
Revenue
Neuralink is privately held; revenue is not publicly disclosed in a reliable, audited way. If you see revenue figures online, they are usually estimates.
Funding (reported)
- Reuters (June 2025): Neuralink said it raised $650 million in a funding round (with named participating investors).
Where Neuralink sits in the BCI landscape (my framing)
Neuralink is best thought of as:
- high-channel-count intracortical recording (aspirationally “high bandwidth”),
- paired with a hardware + surgical-automation strategy,
- pushing toward consumer-like usability (wireless, at-home use) but inside a very hard medical/regulatory environment.
What’s still unclear / key questions to watch
- Long-term reliability
- Signal stability over months/years; electrode encapsulation; durability of threads; explant/replacement strategy.
- Surgical throughput + risk
- Whether automation actually reduces time, cost, and complication rates at scale.
- True information throughput
- “Channel count” is not the same as usable degrees-of-freedom. The key is stable decoding performance over time.
- Clinical indication pathway
- Near-term: paralysis/cursor control is a plausible first product path.
- Longer-term claims (speech, vision, broader neurological conditions) need careful evidence.
Notes on sourcing
I’m intentionally favoring primary/major reporting sources (e.g., Reuters) and official pages over scraped “startup list” aggregators. For private-company stats (employees, location), public directories and LinkedIn are imperfect but often the best available signals.