While most of the venture world has been chasing AI deals, Max Hodak — the co-founder and former president of Neuralink — has been working on a startup that claims to be on the verge of being the first brain-computer interface company to get a product to market.
Those claims haven’t gone unnoticed. Hodak’s startup, Science Corporation, said Wednesday morning that it has raised $230 million in a Series C funding round. A source close to the startup says the round granted Science Corp. a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion.
In the short-term, Science Corp. is betting on PRIMA, a chip said to be smaller than a grain of rice that, when implanted in the eye, works with camera-equipped glasses to restore functional vision to people suffering from advanced macular degeneration.
The startup hasn’t fully developed the tech itself: It bought PRIMA’s assets in 2024 from French outfit Pixium Vision, refined it, and completed trials that Pixium had started.
But the clinical results Science has since generated are its own. In trials spanning 47 patients across Europe and the U.S., 80% demonstrated meaningful improvement in visual acuity and were able to read letters, numbers, and words, the company says.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time that restoration of the ability to fluently read has ever been definitively shown in blind patients,” Hodak told TechCrunch in an interview in December. The startup’s device has also made the cover of Time magazine.
It isn’t clear when PRIMA will be available to patients, but the regulatory path is taking shape. Science Corp. has submitted a CE mark application for the implant to the European Union, and says it expects an approval in mid-2026, following which it’ll launch the product in the continent. It claims this timeline would make it the first BCI company with a product in market.
The company told TechCrunch that Germany is likely to be its first market, as the country has established pathways for granting early access to new medical technologies. In the U.S., regulatory discussions with the FDA are “ongoing,” the startup said.
Science Corp. is also expanding its PRIMA trial program to include Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa, inherited retinal conditions that are leading causes of vision loss in young adults.
The new capital will be used to fund commercialization of PRIMA, as well as to support the startup’s broader research portfolio. This includes a biohybrid neural interface program that involves growing engineered neurons from stem cells onto a waffle-like device that sits on the brain’s surface and forms biological connections with existing neural circuits.
There’s also a new business line inside Science called Vessel: an organ preservation platform that aims to develop miniaturized perfusion technology so that organs can be transported on commercial flights or maintained by patients at home, rather than in ICU suites.
Investors in the Series C include a mix of new and earlier backers, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator and Quiet Capital. IQT, the nonprofit investment firm that focuses on solutions that can be used by government organizations like the FBI and CIA, also invested.
The round brings Science Corp.’s total funding to $490 million. The startup currently employs 150 people.
Update: This story originally reflected the company’s pre-money, not post-money, valuation.