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Globally, list the top 5 neural lace companies, who owns them, what about them makes them the most different or interesting.
Hi there! Thanks for asking about the top five neural lace companies worldwide, as well as details on their ownership and distinctive features. The most useful sources I found to answer your question were the summaries of paywalled reports from Future Market Insights and Grand View Research. The short answer is that while use of the term neural lace is only recently applied to company pursuits, there has been growing interest in pursuing implantable brain-computer interfaces. The top five companies in this area are IBM, Blackrock Microsystems, Kernel, Neuropace, and Ripple. A deep dive of my methodology and findings is presented below.
METHODOLOGY
While I first sought to find any precompiled rankings of companies focused on neural laces technologies, I quickly ascertained that there is very little published information within the wider field of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) which specifically speaks to this segment. Rather, the BCI market is typically segmented by type (invasive, partially invasive, non-invasive), by technology (e.g. electroencephalography or electrocorticography), and/or by application (such as healthcare or gaming/entertainment). Given the limited specifications for what qualifies as a neural lace technology, I focused on finding the top five companies working on invasive brain-computer interfaces.
First, I gathered a large pool of potential candidates by finding both the top BCI companies globally as well as the top BCI startups. I then researched to find out which of these companies are working with, or towards, invasive BCI technologies. Once I identified which candidate companies qualified under this criteria, I looked up revenue information for each company. The top five companies, ranked by revenue (or funding, for startups), are listed below. For each company, I have provided the location of the company's headquarters, any available ownership information, the name of the top executive at the company, and a point of distinction for that company's offerings or research focus.
NEURAL LACE TECHNOLOGIES
The concept of "neural lace" is attributed to sci-fi author Iain M. Banks, who coined the term in his five-book series, The Culture. While the first book in this series was published in 1987, scientists have been working on brain-machine interfaces since at least 1969.
In 2015, it was reported that scientists had invented the neural lace, following publication of an article in Nature Nanotechnology describing success with creating syringe-injectable mesh electronics.
Attention to neural lace technologies heightened in the following years, due first to the creation of Kernel, Bryan Johnson's company which seeks to build an implantable neuroprosthetic chip, in 2016. By March of 2017, Elon Musk had announced his own neural lace startup, Neuralink, with similar aims. However, there has been little released about the exact approach these efforts intend to take. While we can be certain that neural-lace initiatives will, at least initially, be looking at invasive/implantable devices, the specifics of this approach are lacking. For example, Neuralink's goal is to create a "direct cortical interface".
Invasive cortical technology already exists, particularly for use within the healthcare industry. While Kernel and Neuralink aim to further develop such technology, there is little at this time that allows us to distinguish between these companies and established players in the invasive BCI market. As such, the following list ranks the top five companies working within the invasive BCI segment by revenue/funding.
TOP FIVE COMPANIES
HQ: New York, U.S.
Ownership: Public company; IBM (NYSE)
CEO: Ginni Rometty
Distinction: IBM is researching on using deep neural networks to gather and analyze brainwaves from implanted devices, with possible future development of implants to stop seizures before they occur.
HQ: Utah, U.S.
Ownership: Private company; ownership details not available
CEO: Andrew Gotshalk
Distinction: One of the global leaders in the BCI industry, Blackrock is currently undergoing FDA clearance for its fully implantable digital headstage, CerePlex.
HQ: California, U.S.
Ownership: Private; Bryan Johnson
CEO: Bryan Johnson
Distinction: Kernel initially plans to build devices to treat medical conditions, with the goal of eventually developing implantables for cognition enhancement.
HQ: California, U.S.
Ownership: Private; ownership details not available
CEO: Frank M. Fischer
Distinction: Neuropace produces implantable neurostimulators for the treatment of neurological disorders with responsives stimulation. Its initial focus is on treating epilepsy.
HQ: Utah, U.S.
Ownership: Private; ownership details not available
President: Daniel McDonnall
Distinction: One of Ripple's current projects is the development of an implantable blink prosthetic using functional electrical stimulation.
*Note that Neuralink is not on this list, as no funding information was available. According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk intends on funding the startup mostly with his own money.
ADDITIONAL FINDINGS
Several paid reports are available on the global BCI industry. You might be interested in purchasing one or more of these reports, as they provide segmentation by type, technology, and application.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, the top five leading companies working in the neural lace / implantable brain-computer interface field are IBM, Blackrock Microsystems, Kernel, Neuropace, and Ripple.
I hope this helps! Thanks for asking Wonder. Please let us know if we can help with anything else!