SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Paradromics Inc., a company developing high-volume bidirectional data streaming capabilities between brains and computers, today announced that it has completed a $7 million Seed round of financing. Arkitekt Ventures and Synergy Ventures led the investment round with participation from It-Farm, Dolby Ventures, Alpha Edison, Loup Ventures, and existing investor, Fusion Fund. This new funding adds to over $18M in research funding from the Defense Advances Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that was won as part of DARPA’s Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program. Enke Bashllari, Ph.D., a neuroscientist by training and Managing Director of Arkitekt Ventures, has joined the Paradromics Board of Directors.
Paradromics is developing brain-machine interface (BMI) technology that is designed to allow patients with severe connectivity disorders such as blindness, deafness and paralysis to reconnect with the outside world using advanced prosthetic devices. One of the initial applications of this potentially life-changing technology will be to enable locked-in patients who are unable to fluently communicate, to speak again in real time via the aid of a computer.
“We are developing our technology to power the next wave of neural interfacing medical devices — from advanced prosthetics to bioelectronic medicine. The high-bandwidth feature of our technology has revolutionary implications for the field of neuro-prosthetics and beyond,” said Matt Angle, Ph.D., founder and Chief Executive Officer of Paradromics. “The financial backing and strategic expertise of our investors will help us expand the team, grow the IP portfolio and more rapidly execute our technical development plan.”
“We are thrilled to back this team of leading scientists and engineers. They are fundamentally changing the way that humans and computers will interact and are opening the door to a whole new field of medicine,” said Enke Bashllari, Ph.D., Managing Director of Arkitekt Ventures. “The future of BMI goes way beyond conventional prosthetics. Soon, we will address brain diseases not only via a small molecule or biologics, but via targeted electrical signals. Closed loop systems that enable high bandwidth interfacing of the cortex with the outside world (and vice-versa) will radically improve patients’ lives."
About Paradromics
Paradromics is developing high-volume bidirectional data streaming capabilities between brains and computers. Our neural interface technologies will initially be used to help physically disabled patients reconnect with the outside world -- with infinite possibilities beyond. www.paradromics.com
About Arkitekt Ventures
Arkitekt Ventures is an early stage healthcare fund with a mission to improve and advance human health. Arkitekt specializes in supporting visionary technical founders working on “the hard problems”. Arkitekt’s focus areas are novel models of healthcare delivery and applications of frontier technologies including artificial intelligence, neurotech, AR/VR and quantum computing to medicine.
