OpenAI invests in Sam Altman’s brain computer interface startup Merge Labs

Simply whenever you thought the round offers couldn’t get any extra round, OpenAI has invested in CEO Sam Altman’s mind pc interface (BCI) startup Merge Labs. 

Merge Labs, which defines itself as a “analysis lab” devoted to “bridging organic and synthetic intelligence to maximise human capability,” got here out of stealth on Thursday with an undisclosed seed spherical. A supply acquainted with the matter confirmed earlier experiences that OpenAI wrote the biggest single verify in Merge Labs’ $250 million seed spherical at an $850 million valuation.

Funding corporations Bain Capital, Interface Fund and Fifty Years additionally participated within the increase, alongside online game developer Gabe Newell. Seth Bannon, a founding companion at Fifty Years, wrote on X that Merge represents the fruits of the human effort to construct instruments that “lengthen ourselves and our capabilities.”

“Our particular person expertise of the world arises from billions of energetic neurons,” reads an announcement from Merge Labs. “If we are able to interface with these neurons at scale, we may restore misplaced skills, assist more healthy mind states, deepen our reference to one another, and increase what we are able to think about and create alongside superior AI.”

Merge Labs mentioned it intends to succeed in these feats noninvasively by growing “completely new applied sciences that join with neurons utilizing molecules as a substitute of electrodes” to “transit and obtain data utilizing deep-reaching modalities like ultrasound.” 

The transfer deepens Altman’s competitors with Elon Musk, whose startup Neuralink can be growing pc interface chips that enable individuals who undergo from extreme paralysis to regulate units with their ideas. Neuralink at present requires invasive surgical procedure for implantation, the place a surgical robotic removes a small piece of cranium and inserts ultra-fine electrode threads into the mind to learn neural indicators. The corporate final raised a $650 million Collection E at a $9 billion valuation in June 2025. 

Whereas there are undoubtedly medical use circumstances for BCIs, Merge Labs appears extra centered on utilizing the expertise to meet a Silicon Valley fantasy of mixing human biology with AI to offer us superhuman capabilities. 

“Mind pc interfaces (BCIs) are an essential new frontier,” OpenAI wrote in a weblog submit. “They open new methods to speak, study, and work together with expertise. BCIs will create a pure, human-centered method for anybody to seamlessly work together with AI. Because of this OpenAI is collaborating in Merge Labs’ seed spherical.” 

Except for Altman, different co-founders embody Alex Blania (CEO) and Sandro Herbig (product and engineering lead) at Instruments for Humanity, one other Altman-backed firm (and creator of the eye-scanning World orbs); Tyson Aflalo and Sumner Norman, co-founders of implantable neural tech firm Forest Neurotech; and Mikhail Shapiro, a researcher at Caltech.

Blania and Herbig mentioned in separate social media posts that they’d proceed their roles at Instruments for Humanity. Merge Labs didn’t verify whether or not Alfalo and Norman would keep their positions at Forest Neurotech, solely saying that the corporate would proceed working and can have a “great working relationship” with Merge. Shapiro intends to proceed educating at Caltech.

A spokesperson informed Trendster that the co-founders are additionally Merge Labs’ board members.

As a part of the deal, OpenAI will work with Merge Labs on scientific basis fashions and different frontier instruments to “speed up progress.” In its weblog submit, OpenAI famous that AI won’t solely assist speed up R&D in bioengineering, neuroscience, and system engineering, however that the interfaces will even profit from AI working programs that “can interpret intent, adapt to people, and function reliably with restricted and noisy indicators.”

In different phrases, Merge Labs may operate as a distant management for OpenAI’s software program. That leads into the round nature of the deal: If Merge Labs succeeds, it may drive extra customers to OpenAI, which then justifies OpenAI’s funding into the corporate. It additionally will increase the worth of a startup Altman owns utilizing assets from an organization he runs.

OpenAI can be working with Jony Ive’s startup io, which it acquired final yr, to supply a bit of AI {hardware} that doesn’t depend on a display. Latest unconfirmed leaks recommend the system may be an earbud. 

OpenAI primarily invests by means of the OpenAI Startup Fund, which has invested in a number of different startups linked to Altman, together with Purple Queen Bio, Rain AI, and Harvey. OpenAI has additionally entered into industrial agreements with startups Altman personally owns or chairs, together with nuclear fusion startup Helion Power and nuclear fission firm Oklo.

Altman has been dreaming in regards to the “merge” — the concept that people and machines will merge — since at the very least 2017 when he printed a weblog submit guessing it might occur someplace between 2025 and 2075. He additionally speculated that the merge may take many kinds, together with plugging electrons into our brains or changing into “actually shut associates with a chatbot.”

He mentioned a merge is our “best-case situation” for humanity surviving in opposition to superintelligence AI, which he describes as a separate species that’s in battle with people. 

“Though the merge has already begun, it’s going to get quite a bit weirder,” Altman wrote. “We would be the first species ever to design our personal descendants. My guess is that we are able to both be the organic bootloader for digital intelligence after which fade into an evolutionary tree department, or we are able to work out what a profitable merge appears to be like like.”

Trendster has reached out to OpenAI and Merge Labs for extra data.

This text has been up to date to verify that Merge Labs’ founders will proceed work at their respective firms, and with extra particulars about different fund members.