Neurotech firm OpenBCI has announced a new investment in an undisclosed amount, attracting Bitkraft Ventures, re.Mind and NaHCO3 to support its biometric and mixed reality (MX) technology.

The new funds will be used to further develop the company’s Galea platform, a hardware and software solution merging next-generation biometrics and MX. Specifically, OpenBCI says it will use the investment to scale its team to accelerate technology development and prepare Galea for limited pre-orders of beta units in early 2022.

The hardware and software platform was first announced in November 2020. From a technical point of view, it is essentially a headset with several sensors capable of biometrically monitoring in real time the heart, skin, muscles, eyes and brain activity of users.

The data thus acquired through biodetection and brain-computer interfacing (BCI) techniques can then be shared by individuals with healthcare, research and entertainment companies.

Galea was developed in collaboration with Valve and Tobii, and according to OpenBCI, in the future it will be able to track a user’s emotional and mental physiology during play, for example, and use that information to personalize items. of the game in real time. time.

“This is the first time that a technology of this caliber has been introduced into the commercial space, and we believe it is the start of a new relationship with the virtual worlds around us,” said Moritz Baier- Lentz, partner at Bitkraft Ventures.

Additionally, OpenBCI said the technology could be used for other applications outside the traditional business-to-consumer (B2C) sphere.

“The next generation of computers will be highly personalized based on data collected from sensors like those at Galea,” said OpenBCI CEO Conor Russomanno. “With Galea, we seek to create a powerful platform for companies, developers and researchers who are already exploring how these signals will be integrated into everyday devices. Our ultimate goal for the next era of OpenBCI is to play a major role in creating the “Mind Operating System”.

Articles topics

biometric sensors | biometrics | brain computer interface | financing | investment | mixed reality | surveillance | OpenBCI | Research and development