Neurable, the company bringing breakthroughs in neurotech to the consumer

Company Background

Neurable is a Boston-based deeptech neurotechnology company spun out of the University of Michigan’s Direct-Brain Interface Laboratory. Its vision is to make neurotechnology easily accessible to everyone, everywhere. With 10+ years of scientific development, Neurable’s proprietary tech platform cleans and interprets brain waves that enable high-performing EEG sensors to be seamlessly integrated into everyday devices.

Their beachhead product, Enten, is a premium headphone brain-computer-interface (BCI) device that uses brainwave sensors and algorithms to robustly estimate focus, enabling users to build better work habits, improve work efficiency, and prevent burnout.

Neurable’s beachhead product: The “Enten” headset

Team

CEO and co-founder Dr. Ramses Alcaide is leading Neurable, heading both a seasoned team and further developing Neurable’s cutting-edge technology. He is a neuroscientist (PhD) and electrical engineer by training who has worked in the BCI space for ten years developing technology for people with amputations, severe cerebral palsy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Co-founder Adam Molar, acting as Head of Partnerships, has worked with leading brands to bring BCI and other emerging technologies to market. Adam is a recipient of Forbes 30 under 30 for consumer tech and also founded the content initiative for NeurotechX.

Ramses Alcaide (CEO & Co-Founder) speaking at TedXBoston

Rounding out the core leadership, is Jamie Alders, VP of Product, previously at Bose for 12 years, accompanying eight products and dozens of software releases including the integration of Alexa into Bose devices, whilst the company grew to $3B in revenue. The balance of the team is a combination of PhD.s in neuroscience and machine learning experts, and it feels a little bit like an Ivy League alumi reunion.

The advisory board is also nothing short of stellar experts, including the Director of Neurotherapeutics at the Massachusetts General Hospital (Dr. Darin Doughtery),the Founding Chair of the Brown Department of Neuroscience and Brain Gate (Dr. John Donoghue), MITs neural signal processing leader Dr. Earl Miller and Stanford’s cognitive neuroscientist and entrepreneur Dr. David Eagleman.

BCI Market

In recent years, BCI technology has gained enormous traction due to increased research efforts and breakthroughs. With improved sensor accuracy and higher signal quality, non-invasive BCI can now yield impressive real-time insights. Particularly wearable and non-invasive consumer BCI devices have appeared, with use cases from attention and focus to sleep and relaxation.The space has seen a spike in the number of emerging start-ups and funding, with 2021 reaching $130M of capital raised across 14 deals. This trend is continuing in 2022 and very likely more strongly beyond. Combining both non-invasive and invasive BCI tech, the market is valued at around $1.5B and expected to grow by 14% per year to $5.5B by 2030.

Yet, there are stark differences regarding the quality of BCI technology used across companies trying to translate research breakthroughs into consumer products. Neurable has done this particularly well. The core team has been working on their BCI tech for over 10 years and has contributed to multiple research efforts. The quality of their proprietary whitepaper (see here) stood out to us: it provides evidence for real-time accurate signal processing, and showed that their beachhead product can induce behavioral changes. Neurable’s technology has also been featured in the top science publications such as Nature, Journal of Neuroengineering, and Brain-computer interfaces.

Neurable Product & Competition

As mentioned, the beachhead product at Neurable is “Enten”, an elegant headphone set that can yield life-enhancing insights into how people work and their long-term cognitive health. Getting to Enten has been an exciting ride: When Neurable was founded, their product started off looking like an EEG cap. The team then experimented on varying form factors and optimized the platform and electrode use — reducing the 22 dry electrodes to 6 dry electrodes. In 2018, they pivoted to a VR product, showing that their BCI tech worked by enabling mind-enabled VR control(1,2,3). After refining the focus algorithm and collecting massive brain data, they unveiled Enten with their Indiegogo campaign selling out in 30 minutes(1,2) (!).

Neurable’s product development

This hints at the team’s success to date: they have successfully achieved the integration of EEG sensors into an everyday consumer product, which enables the facilitation of diverse insights into how we operate. The current use case specializes in productivity and focus, with Neurable’s earcup sensors allowing Enten to reliably measure brain waves. Their algorithm works with a signal processing pipeline that shows focus levels in real-time and can help users optimize their workday agenda.

What fascinated us was both the beautiful form factor for the hardware device (as opposed to the traditional EEG cap worn across the scalp) and the software component behind the hardware, Neurable’s BrainOS Platform. Their proprietary tech platform technology allows dry EEG measurement devices to collect, clean, and process EEG in ways not possible without the company’s patented technology; demonstrating EEG capabilities beyond that of any other company.

Neurable’s product will soon be available in retail: after running the very successful Indiegogo campaign (fully funded in 30 minutes), the team has recently signed an exciting distribution agreement, which will bring the company to the next level and their exciting tech out into the world.

The Future

This video provides a glimpse into Neurable’s future. As you can tell, the Enten product is just the beginning.

The Future of Neurable

We love what Neurable envisions when saying they are “harnessing the power of the human brain”: the integration of scientific breakthroughs into everyday products creating more conscious and healthier lives. Beyond their current use case of cognitive performance, which enables them access to market entry, Neurable is keen to venture into other domains and channels. These include clinical applications for anxiety and ADHD, with future integrations of any IoT device. Their current user group are knowledge workers; yet we believe that their product will soon be yearned for by consumers for everyday usage beyond biohackers and techies.

Investors

Pace Ventures is very happy to share the cap table with M Ventures, Innospark Ventures, Lowercase, Mithril, Metaplanet, and a set of other fantastic investors who believe as well in a close future inherently shaped by the forces of neurotechnology.