The archive · Health & Care · Product decision · 2021–2026
Precision Neuroscience bets a brain-surface film, not threads, wins BCI — FDA first
A Neuralink co-founder's second BCI bets a 1,024-contact brain film can beat threads — and won the first FDA clearance for a wireless BCI.
Precision Neuroscience
What the business is
New York BCI maker developing Layer 7, a hair-thin 1,024-electrode film laid on the brain to record, monitor and stimulate cortical signals — sold first for surgical mapping, aimed at restoring speech and movement for paralyzed people.
Starting capital：$102M Series C (Dec 2024, led by General Equity Holdings; B Capital, Duquesne Family Office, Steadview Capital); $155M raised total.
How it started
Precision was founded in New York in 2021 by CEO Michael Mager and CSO Benjamin Rapoport, a neurosurgeon-engineer who helped found Neuralink in 2017 and left a year later. Its founding bet inverted the field's slide toward deeper implants: place arrays on the brain's surface, where films can be added without cutting tissue, so resolution can scale.
What happened
In April 2024, Mount Sinai surgeons placed four Layer 7 films on one patient — 4,096 electrodes over about 8 cm² — a world record for recording from a human brain, during a benign-tumor surgery where the array mapped motor and sensory boundaries. On 2024-12-16 it closed a $102M Series C led by General Equity Holdings with B Capital, Duquesne Family Office and Steadview Capital, taking total funding to $155M. On 2025-04-16 the FDA gave Layer 7 510(k) clearance — which Precision called the first full regulatory clearance for a wireless BCI — authorizing commercial use with implantation up to 30 days; 37 patients had been implanted by then. By August 2026, nearly 100 participants at 18 US academic centers had used Layer 7 to move cursors, answer video calls and play Mario Kart and Fruit Ninja with thought alone.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Precision Neuroscience, founded in New York in 2021 by Michael Mager and Benjamin Rapoport — a neurosurgeon-engineer who helped co-found Neuralink in 2017 and left in 2018 — bet that a brain-computer interface could be built from films laid on the brain's surface instead of electrodes that pierce it. Its Layer 7 array packs 1,024 contacts into a film thinner than a human hair that conforms to the cortex without damaging tissue, and the company argued the design could scale by stacking films.
The approach produced a stream of firsts. In April 2024, Mount Sinai surgeons placed four Layer 7 films on a patient during benign-tumor surgery, recording from 4,096 electrodes over about 8 cm² — a world record for a living human brain. In December 2024 the company closed a $102 million Series C led by General Equity Holdings, reaching $155 million raised. In April 2025 the FDA granted Layer 7 510(k) clearance for commercial use with implantation of up to 30 days, which Precision described as the first full regulatory clearance for a wireless BCI; 37 patients had been implanted by then.
By August 2026, nearly 100 participants across 18 US academic medical centers had used the system to control cursors, make video calls and play games with thought alone, according to pharmaphorum. Precision's end goal remains a chronic implant that restores communication and movement for people with paralysis, funded in the meantime by a cleared product used in routine neurosurgery — an unusual position for a young BCI company whose thread-based rivals are still investigational.
What has to be true
- Surface placement avoided the FDA's toughest implant-review questions, letting Layer 7 win the first full clearance for a wireless BCI while penetrating rivals stayed in clinical studies.
- Surgical brain mapping is a real near-term market, so Precision collects data and revenue from hospitals instead of waiting for a chronic-implant market to exist.
- Stacking films — 1,024 electrodes per array, four arrays for the 4,096-electrode record — directly answered the field's 'not enough data' problem.
- Rapoport's Neuralink pedigree plus clinical partners at Mount Sinai, Penn, WVU and Beth Israel gave investors and surgeons a credible path.
What can be applied
A less invasive design with a faster regulatory path can beat a flashier one: Precision used FDA-cleared surface films to gather data and revenue while thread rivals stayed in trials.
Aftermath
As of September 2026, Layer 7 is FDA-cleared and marketed for temporary use of up to 30 days during neurosurgery, and nearly 100 participants at 18 US academic medical centers have used the system, including for real-time thought-based control of phones and games. Precision's stated endgame remains a chronic implant that restores speech and movement for people with paralysis, built on what it calls the first removable, upgradeable and scalable BCI architecture.
Sources
- Brain implant cleared by FDA for Precision Neuroscience, a Musk Neuralink rival
- Precision Neuroscience deploys 4,096 electrodes in brain-computer interface procedure
- Precision Neuroscience: $102 Million (Series C) Raised For Advancing AI-Based Brain Implant
- Precision Neuro breaks new ground in BCI technology
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