Merge Labs

Merge Labs is an American brain-computer interface research lab founded in 2025 and headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The company was spun out of the Forest Neurotech nonprofit research organization and is developing non-invasive brain-computer interfaces using ultrasound and molecular approaches rather than implanted electrodes. As of May 2026, Merge Labs has raised approximately $252 million in seed funding at an $850 million post-money valuation, with OpenAI writing the largest single check in a round that also included Bain Capital, Interface Fund, Fifty Years, and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell.

At a glance

• Founded: 2025; emerged from stealth in January 2026. Spun out of Forest Neurotech.
• Status: Private. Seed round closed January 2026.
• Funding: $252 million seed round at an $850 million post-money valuation. OpenAI led with the largest single check; Bain Capital, Interface Fund, Fifty Years, and Gabe Newell participated.
• CEO: Alex Blania, co-founder. Co-founder and CEO of Tools for Humanity, the operating company behind World (the Worldcoin biometric-identity network).
• Other notable leadership: Mikhail Shapiro, co-founder; Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering at Caltech, known for ultrasound neurotechnology and gene-encoded acoustic reporter cells. Sumner Norman, co-founder; previously co-founder of Forest Neurotech. Tyson Aflalo, co-founder; researcher at Caltech and co-founder of Forest Neurotech. Sandro Herbig, co-founder; previously at Tools for Humanity. Sam Altman is involved in a personal capacity as a co-founder.
• Open weights: Not applicable. Merge Labs is a hardware-and-biology research lab rather than a software model developer.
• Flagship outputs: No commercial product as of May 2026. The company is in early-research phase.

Origins

Merge Labs emerged from stealth in January 2026 through a coordinated announcement with OpenAI's official investment-disclosure post. The company was spun out of Forest Neurotech, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit research organization formed in 2023 to advance non-invasive brain-computer interface technology. Forest Neurotech's research program centered on ultrasound neuromodulation and molecular sensing, two threads that translated directly into the Merge Labs commercialization effort.

The founding team combines academic neuroscience, applied biology, and AI-product backgrounds. Mikhail Shapiro is the Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering at Caltech, where his lab pioneered acoustic reporter genes (gene-encoded molecules that produce ultrasound contrast in living cells) and ultrasound-based neuromodulation methods. Tyson Aflalo, also a Caltech researcher, has worked on motor cortex decoding and the neural correlates of intention. Sumner Norman previously co-founded Forest Neurotech and contributed to its early research direction. Alex Blania and Sandro Herbig come from Tools for Humanity, where Blania serves as co-founder and CEO of the operating company behind World.

Sam Altman's involvement as a co-founder, in a personal capacity, parallels his earlier sponsorship of Tools for Humanity and aligns with his long-stated interest in human-AI integration. The "Merge" name traces to a 2017 essay Altman published titled "The Merge," which described a future in which biological and artificial intelligence converge.

The January 2026 funding announcement combined a $252 million seed round at an $850 million post-money valuation with OpenAI's strategic investment. OpenAI's official disclosure framed the investment as alignment with its long-term research thesis on human-AI complementarity. Bain Capital, Interface Fund (a deep-tech specialist), Fifty Years (a frontier-tech VC), and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell rounded out the round.

The technical approach is explicitly non-invasive. Where Neuralink targets surgically implanted electrode arrays for high-bandwidth read-write capability, Merge Labs develops ultrasound-based readout combined with molecular probes (gene-encoded acoustic reporters and related techniques) intended to deliver decoded intent without surgery. The premise is that non-invasive readout, combined with sufficiently rich molecular signal-shaping, can approach the bandwidth and latency that implant-based BCIs currently achieve, while removing the surgical and durability barriers that have constrained Neuralink's clinical rollout.

Mission and strategy

Merge Labs's stated mission is to "bridge biological and artificial intelligence to maximize human ability." The framing reflects the founders' shared thesis that the next frontier of AI capability is in direct neural integration rather than purely external interfaces. The strategic premise is that non-invasive BCIs, if technically feasible, will dominate the commercial market because surgical and regulatory barriers are removed.

The strategy combines two threads. The first is fundamental research on ultrasound neurotechnology and molecular probes, drawing on the Caltech Shapiro lab's published research and on Forest Neurotech's earlier work. The second is the commercial development of consumer-grade BCI products, with the long-term framing that successful technology becomes a complement to AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude rather than a replacement for them.

The competitive premise is that the BCI category bifurcates between implant-based high-bandwidth applications (where Neuralink and Synchron compete) and non-invasive consumer-grade applications (where Merge Labs is positioned). The non-invasive category has historically struggled with signal-to-noise tradeoffs that constrain achievable bandwidth; the technical bet is that ultrasound-with-molecular-probes shifts that frontier.

Models and products

• Research output. Merge Labs has not announced commercial products. Public outputs to date are limited to investor-disclosure statements and the company's emergence-from-stealth coverage.
• Forest Neurotech research lineage. The technical foundation draws on published research from the Shapiro lab at Caltech and from Forest Neurotech's nonprofit research program, including ultrasound neuromodulation and acoustic reporter genes.

The product roadmap, FDA-regulatory pathway, and commercial launch timing have not been publicly disclosed. Industry coverage characterizes the company as a multi-year research program rather than a near-term commercial entrant.

Benchmarks and standing

Standardized BCI benchmarks for non-invasive readout are not as established as foundation-model evaluations. The relevant figures of merit are signal-to-noise ratio, decoding accuracy on motor and language imagery tasks, and the temporal resolution achievable through ultrasound-and-molecular-probe combinations. Published research from the Shapiro lab and from peer non-invasive BCI groups (including Kernel and various academic labs) provide the relevant comparison set.

Standing within the broader BCI category draws on the founder team's research credentials (Shapiro at Caltech, Aflalo's motor-cortex decoding work, Norman's Forest Neurotech contributions) and on the magnitude of the OpenAI-led seed round, which is among the largest seed rounds in BCI history. Whether the technical premise translates into product remains the open question.

Leadership

As of May 2026, Merge Labs's senior leadership includes:

• Alex Blania, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder. Co-founder and CEO of Tools for Humanity. Holds the strategic and operational lead for the company.
• Mikhail Shapiro, co-founder. Caltech professor and the principal academic-research lead. Continues his Caltech professorship in parallel with the co-founder role.
• Sumner Norman, co-founder. Previously co-founder of Forest Neurotech.
• Tyson Aflalo, co-founder. Caltech researcher; previously co-founder of Forest Neurotech.
• Sandro Herbig, co-founder. Previously at Tools for Humanity.
• Sam Altman, co-founder in a personal capacity. CEO of OpenAI.

The senior research-and-engineering bench has not been publicly disclosed beyond the founding team. The company is reported to be hiring across neuroscience, biology, hardware engineering, and machine learning.

Funding and backers

Merge Labs's funding history through May 2026 consists of one disclosed round:

• Seed (January 2026): $252 million at $850 million post-money valuation, led by OpenAI. Bain Capital, Interface Fund, Fifty Years, and Gabe Newell participated.

The round size and the OpenAI strategic-investor lead are unusual for a pre-product BCI startup. Industry coverage has framed the round as a strategic bet on long-term human-AI integration, with OpenAI's investment validating the alignment between Merge Labs's BCI research and OpenAI's broader AI capability roadmap.

The valuation implies aggressive expectations on technical-feasibility resolution and on commercial product timeline. Subsequent rounds at higher valuations would depend on demonstrable progress against the technical premise.

Industry position

Merge Labs occupies a distinctive position as the principal commercially-funded non-invasive BCI lab as of May 2026. The combination of the Caltech-and-Forest-Neurotech research lineage, the OpenAI-led strategic backing, and the explicit non-invasive technical positioning produces a profile that incumbent BCI players and the AI-foundation-model labs do not directly match.

Industry coverage has characterized the company as a long-term research bet with execution risk on multiple fronts: the technical feasibility of high-bandwidth non-invasive readout, the regulatory pathway for any consumer or clinical product, and the commercial conversion of the research into a product the broader market will adopt. The premise that non-invasive BCIs can compete with implant-based approaches on bandwidth has been contested within the broader neurotechnology research community.

Competitive landscape

Merge Labs competes with several BCI and adjacent-category players:

• Neuralink. The principal implant-based BCI competitor, founded by Elon Musk in 2016. Neuralink targets surgically implanted high-bandwidth electrode arrays for clinical applications including paralysis. The implant-versus-non-invasive distinction is the principal competitive axis.
• Synchron. Endovascular BCI startup that places electrodes through blood vessels rather than via direct cortical surgery. Synchron's positioning is between Neuralink's full-implant approach and the non-invasive approaches.
• Kernel. Non-invasive BCI startup using a different sensing modality (functional near-infrared spectroscopy and magnetoencephalography). Closer category peer to Merge Labs.
• Forest Neurotech. The nonprofit research organization from which Merge Labs spun out. Forest Neurotech continues operating independently and collaboratively with Merge Labs.
• Academic neurotechnology labs. Caltech, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, and other research universities support BCI research that informs the broader category.

Outlook

Several open questions affect Merge Labs's trajectory in 2026 and 2027:

• Initial research milestones, including any peer-reviewed publications or technical demonstrations from the company itself rather than the upstream Caltech and Forest Neurotech research lines.
• Senior research-and-engineering hiring depth, given the specialized neurotechnology talent pool.
• Regulatory-pathway clarity, including whether the company targets a consumer device, a clinical device, or both.
• Subsequent fundraising; the seed-round valuation implies a meaningful capability demonstration before the next priced round.
• The competitive dynamic with Neuralink, particularly any consumer-or-clinical products that might compete directly on user experience.
• The broader question of whether non-invasive BCIs can deliver clinically or commercially meaningful bandwidth, which has been a multi-decade open question in the broader neurotechnology research community.

Sources

• TechCrunch: OpenAI invests in Sam Altman's brain computer interface startup Merge Labs. Launch coverage.
• OpenAI: Investing in Merge Labs. Investor-side announcement.
• Bloomberg: Merge Labs Raises $252 Million for Brain-Computer Interface Devices. Funding details.
• Tom's Hardware: Sam Altman raises $252 million for brain computer interface venture. Research-stage context.
• Nature: OpenAI-backed firm to use ultrasound to read minds. Does the science stand up?. Independent technical reporting.
• Forest Neurotech. Predecessor research organization.
• Caltech: Shapiro Lab. Co-founder's academic research program.