Thursday, July 9, 2020
Kernel Collects $53M For Brain Recording
Los Angeles-based Kernel, a startup developing "brain recording" technology which monitors magnetic fields and neural activity in the brain, has raised $53M in a Series C funding round, the company announced this morning. the funding was led by General Catalyst, and also included Khosla Ventures, Eldridge, Manta Ray Ventures, and Tiny Blue Dot. The startup, led by founder and CEO Bryan Johnson, said the funding is the first outside funding of the company. Kernel said it previously raised $54M in funding from its founder, Johnson. As part of the funding, Quentin Clark of General Catalyst joins the company's board. Kernel says it has developed brain recording technologies, called Flow and Flux. Flux detects the magnetic fields generated by collective neural activity in the brain (i.e. magnetic flux); Flow detects cortical hemodynamics, which is representative of neural activity (i.e. blood flow). The company says its technology might help in the discovery of biomarkers of cognition and brain health and improved A.I. for difficult tasks like computer vision, attention, translation, natural language processing. More information »