According to an SEC filing from July, former Neuralink co-founder, Max Hodak, has been secretly working on building a strongly-backed new company called Science Corp. The filing discloses that Brain Corp has raise over $47 million from 14 different investors.
The whole ordeal has been quite secretive as Hodak currently doesn’t have any position at all listed on his linked in profile, and multiple former Neuralink employees have recently changed their profiles to show they work for ‘science’ and sharing the same link to a hiring page listing positions including stem cell scientists, microfabrication tool engineer, and registered veterinary technician.
With the drama that surrounds former co-founder, Elon Musk, and the mysterious separation between Hodak and Neuralink, many are making assumptions on the business of Science Corp based on this elusive activity. Alan Mardinly, for example, served for 3 years as the Director of Biology at Neuralink and Corey Wolin served 3 years there as a hardware engineer.
Wolin’s post gave some clarification to the business of Science Corp as he shared, “We’re hiring!” Opportunity to join early at a new startup working at the intersection of biology and electronics,” along with the hiring page.
These clues add up to a likeness that Science Corp will focus on neuro technology that utilizes gene-editing and optogenetics. Mardinly’s experience paired with the open positions on the hiring page back this up.
Another lingering question is in regards to the investors. $47 million from 14 unknown investors has people wondering who is backing the secret venture. Since it is still unclear whether Hodak left Neuralink on his own accord or was fired, some question if Musk himself is backing the venture.
To add to the drama, founder of Mt. Gox, the cryptocurrency exchange which lost 850,000 bitcoin in a cyber attack, has joined the new expedition. Jed McCaleb is listed as a director on the SEC filing, and is still entangled in SEC litigation for Ribble Labs for which he is the former CTO.
Under Hodak’s charge, Neuralink struggled to get new projects through clinical testing in a timely manner. Regardless of the lineup, we await to see if Science Corp has better luck making an impact on the innovation of neurotech.
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