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This podcast's purpose is to bring together the field of neuroprosthetics/brain machine interfaces/brain implants in an understandable conversation about the current topics and breakthroughs.

We hope to replace needing to read scientific papers on new research in an easy to digest way.

People can share thoughts or ideas to facilitate 'idea sex' to make the field of brain implants a smaller and more personal space.

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  2. Neurotech Startup News – Avery Bedows and Doug Clinton Discuss Investment Roundup in Neurotech

Neurotech Startup News – Avery Bedows and Doug Clinton Discuss Investment Roundup in Neurotech

Nov 18, 2019

Avery Bedows and Doug Clinton are part of Loup Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in frontier technology. In this episode, which is the first of a quarterly series on neurotech news, they discuss recent events regarding investment in neurotech companies as well as growths and developments within the neurotech industry.

Top three takeaways:

  1. Companies can sometimes look at the value of an investment not just in terms of revenue, but in terms of gaining a strong foothold in an upcoming area of development
  2. The Neuralink presentation gave more of a long-term view of future goals, in an attempt to increase their hiring and rein in excitement
  3. By 2020, there will be a lot more neurotech startups and overall more capital present within the industry, and lots of opportunities for investors

 

[0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and his guests, Avery Bedows and Doug Clinton, who are with Loup Ventures

[2:00] Facebook acquired CTRL-labs for $500 million, Avery discusses the significance of this

[5:00] There is discussion over whether Facebook is more interested in brain-computer interfaces or VR

[8:45] The value of the investment is explored and it is discussed whether Facebook acquired CTRL-labs more for monetary gain or as a way to truly enter the field of VR/AR

[12:00] Thomas Reardon, a co-founder of CTRL-labs and inventor of Internet Explorer, knew that his product reached a lot of people, but wasn’t part of a full-blown platform, so he needed to plug it into a company that provided the full-blown platform

[15:10] Topic switches to Neuralink, Ladan and the guests discuss their thoughts on the Neuralink presentation where Elon Musk discusses the automation of electrode-thread implantation

[18:20] Avery discusses what he found most interesting about the whole presentation and how he interprets it

[21:50] Avery discusses some motivations for being in neuro that he has found in people

[25:45] Doug mentions that the future of interface with which we communicate may be related to VR/AR, beyond that it may tie to direct interface with brain

[27:40] Topic switches to Loup Ventures’ investment in Rune Labs, Avery and Doug provide some background and opinions

[31:30] Big picture for Rune Labs is seeing data platform for intracranial data from the brain, using data to enable other development of medical applications

[33:30] There will likely be more capital in 2020 within this whole field, we will see info about young startups, lots of early stage neuro