Sam Altman-backed Merge Labs has a new competitor in the race to build a brain-computer interface powered by ultrasound. Bridge Neurotech is launching with $13.5 million in funding, including from venture firm General Catalyst, which has also backed major tech companies such as Anduril, Anthropic, Airbnb, and Stripe.

The company is the latest in a growing field of startups that aim to translate signals from the brain into useful actions. Elon Musk’s Neuralink, plus Synchron, Paradromics, and Precision Neuroscience are all working on brain-computer interfaces to help people who have lost the ability to move or speak.

These approaches all require surgery of some kind, which is why Bridge founder and CEO Will Biederman says he struck out on his own. “It fundamentally comes down to a difference in vision,” he says.

Biederman developed the chip Neuralink licensed to use in its first devices as part of his PhD work, but his goal with Bridge is to build a wearable device that could be used by far more people than a brain implant. Only 100 or so people around the world have received an implanted brain-computer interface as part of clinical trials, including at least 21 volunteers who have gotten Neuralink’s device.

“The risks of neurosurgery really cannot be minimized or dismissed, and so the level of safety and benefit that these devices must deliver really is quite high,” Biederman says. “Nobody really wants a hole in their head.”

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