Neurable moves to license its 'mind-reading' tech for consumer wearables

BCI (brain-computer interface) technology, which routes neural signals from a person’s head to a computer, once belonged to science fiction. Today, it represents a fiercely competitive sector in the tech industry. Among the companies racing to commercialize BCI is Neurable, which recently announced plans to license its “mind-reading” technology to consumer wearables.

Neurable specializes in non-invasive BCI, setting it apart from firms like Neuralink—the Elon Musk-founded startup known for implanting computer chips directly into human skulls. Unlike Neuralink, Neurable’s product does not require users to undergo brain surgery to benefit from it.

Neurable’s technology combines EEG sensors and signal processing to scan brain activity, analyze it with AI, and deliver insights into a person’s cognitive performance.

In December, Neurable raised $35 million in a Series A round, which it plans to use to scale commercialization. This week, the company announced it is seeking to license its technology to a range of consumer-facing companies as part of its expansion efforts.

The idea is that mind-reading technology—which can provide detailed data on how a person’s brain functions during various activities—could be integrated into wearables across multiple industries, including health and athletic products, productivity tools, and gaming. “Through Neurable’s licensing platform, OEMs can directly integrate its AI-powered brain-sensing technology into existing hardware, such as headphones, hats, glasses, and headbands, while maintaining full control over product design, user experience, and distribution,” the company stated in a Tuesday press release.

Neurable has already partnered with several companies to test its effectiveness. This includes HP Inc.’s HyperX, a gaming brand, with which it created a headset designed to help gamers “level up their game play by optimizing focus and performance.” It has also partnered with iMotions, a software platform specializing in human behavior research, to support the company’s research initiatives.

In an interview, Neurable’s CEO Ramses Alcaide declined to disclose new partnerships in the works but said the company is looking to expand its reach across a wide range of domains.

“In the past, we were very specific about our partnerships,” Alcaide said, noting that Neurable tended to focus on one company at a time to prove that a unique commercial application was worthwhile. Now that they know expectations can be met on multiple fronts, the startup is focused on scaling, he added.

“What we’re doing now is we’re basically saying, ‘Hey, we’ve demonstrated that we’re getting great traction,’” Alcaide said. “Let’s make this as ubiquitous as heart rate sensors on your wrist, right?”

Despite the “non-invasive” label, brain data is arguably more intimate than information from a heart rate sensor. So what kind of privacy protections does a company like Neurable provide?

Alcaide said the company ensures user data is “protected and anonymized.” Neurable’s privacy policy outlines various guidelines for when and how user data may be accessed and used. “We make sure we follow HIPAA standards—we’ve gone above and beyond where a lot of startups would be at our stage to make sure that we protect the data, we encrypt it, and that we anonymize it,” Alcaide said.

Does Neurable leverage a user’s neural data to train its AI software? “We can with user consent, right?” Alcaide said. “But we do it in a very specific way.” That specific way involves asking the user whether their data can be used for particular experiments, Alcaide explained. “We are not collecting the data, just training on it willy nilly,” he said. In other words, this kind of data usage is quite targeted.

Alcaide said the industry is at an “inflection point”—one where there finally exists “a real business model in neuro-technology that is scalable.” What comes after that inflection point is the big question.