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The October Digest

Neurofounders
Monthly digest

The October Edition

October 2026

Sabi’s claims under examination, BCI evidence at scale, and real progress in neuroprostheses.

This month, we published our first long-form investigation. For two weeks, I went through everything publicly available on Sabi, one of the most divisive startups to appear on the scene this year. In October, the two-year-old company raised $50 million at a reported $600 million valuation to develop what it describes as a 100,000-sensor EEG beanie that can turn your thoughts into speech.

Whether the beanie exists is not yet clear. What is clear is that neurotech is built on evidence, and October brought plenty of it from more mature projects across the field. Neuralink pretrained its decoders on more than 50,000 hours of recordings, Precision published a neural atlas built from its clinical work, and both Paradromics and CorTec reported four years of stable recordings in animals.

Dominic Borkelmans

Founder & Editor-in-chief

Neurotech Futures

Community partner

A monthly review of the commercial, clinical and regulatory moves shaping neurotech, co-written by Naveen Rao and Dominic Borkelmans. Read Signals →

Investigating the 100,000-sensor beanie

Our first long-form investigation traces Sabi from a 2024 Delaware filing to a reported $600M valuation, testing its claims on sensors, neural data and speech decoding against the evidence.

Evidence milestones

Precision’s 70-patient neural atlas, Paradromics’ four years of stable recordings in sheep, and Neuralink’s decoders pretrained on 50,000 hours.

Neuralink is pretraining decoders on 50,000 hours of intracortical data, cutting recalibration for some participants from ten minutes a day to ten minutes a week.

Don’t forget about neuroprostheses

We haven’t covered the prosthetics field in a while, but October saw real progress. In industry, Phantom Neuro implanted its muscle interface in its first human participants. In academic research, a University of Utah participant took a nerve-connected LUKE Arm home for a yearlong trial.

Industry · Phantom Neuro

Phantom X sits beneath the skin over residual-limb muscles. The first CYBORG participants received it at Cabrini Health, Melbourne. The study will enroll 10 people, and a $30M Series B is planned.

Research · University of Utah

Alexander Davidson is using a LUKE Arm linked to an implanted nerve interface at home for a year, testing whether control and touch feedback hold up in daily use.

In partnership with the European Brain Council

Brain Innovation Days 2026, 18 to 19 November, Area 42, Brussels

Brain Innovation Days is the European Brain Council’s two-day event on brain health and neurotechnology, bringing together researchers, startups, investors and policymakers at Area 42, Brussels, on 18 and 19 November.

Registration closes 4 November. Register →

Neurotech is not a niche

The field reaches well beyond brain implants. This month we spoke with two founders working at opposite ends of it. One is using focused ultrasound to treat depression, the other builds software that lets EEG wearables recognise who is wearing them.

Interview · Jeffrey Coull, founder

Jeffrey Coull on FUS•ion One, a 2,048-transmitter ultrasound helmet that can reach deep brain structures, and a first depression trial set to begin early next year.

Interview · Thomas Semah, founder

Thomas Semah on Neuro ID, software that authenticates users of EEG-enabled wearables from their brain activity, starting in high-security sectors before consumer devices.

Deep dive

Neurotech mapped along the visual pathway, from Science’s PRIMA retinal implant and Axorus’ contact lens to cortical and thalamic implants from ReVision, Neuralink and Phosphoenix.

Explainers

Consumer neurotech

The EEG devices consumers can buy today, from Muse and NextSense sleep wearables to Neurable’s headphones and research headsets from OpenBCI and Emotiv.

Ecosystem & policy

Drawing on 16 neurotech companies, a new OECD report sets out five areas for neurodata policy, from privacy definitions to pathways for adaptive, AI-enabled devices.

Podcast

Tim Mahoney, Fluent

Conversations · New Episode

The Fluent founder and CEO on InScribe, a subscalp EEG system that sits beneath the scalp but outside the skull, and how AI models help reconstruct attempted speech.

In brief

The following updates are covered in Market Notes, our biweekly briefing tracking the Neurofounders Startup Map.

NeuroXess raised RMB 700 million (about $98 million) in a Series B co-led by SDIC Unity Capital, Shenzhen Capital Group and Triwise Capital, to fund registration trials of its fully implanted, wireless BCI and a new factory. Startup Map →

Precision Neuroscience signed a two-year memorandum of understanding with Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, supported by the emirate’s Department of Health. It is the company’s first clinical research site outside the US. Startup Map →

Coherence Neuro raised a $45M Series A co-led by Founders Fund and the OpenAI Startup Fund for glioblastoma implants, starting with CIPHER, a thin-film cortical probe first tested in three patients. Startup Map →

Bridge Neurotech emerged from stealth with $13.5M, backed by General Catalyst and others, for a non-invasive BCI based on functional ultrasound. It licenses Butterfly Network’s Ultrasound-on-Chip technology. Source →

Saluda Medical recalled certain Evoke closed-loop spinal cord stimulators after a manufacturing change caused unintended stimulation during charging. Around 3,900 devices may be affected, and shares hit a record low. Startup Map →

Market Notes #11 Market Notes #12

That is a wrap on October. Read together, this month’s stories show where progress in neurotech is documented, from years of stable recordings to first human implants, and where claims are still waiting for data.

I’m sending this from New York, where I’m attending the NYC BCI Symposium. If you are in town, join me at the NYBCI26 x Neurotech Futures x NeuroNYC mixer on Wednesday 4 November, the evening before the symposium.

November is a busy month of travel. But we have more in store before the end of the year, including new podcast episodes, one more webinar and updates to the Neurofounders maps.

Dominic Borkelmans

Founder & Editor-in-chief · Neurofounders · neurofounders.co

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