A NeuroAI startup founded by a pioneer of Face ID has secured $52 million in funding.

      One of the innovators behind Apple’s Face ID aims to focus AI on a challenge that goes beyond facial recognition. He envisions it being used to interpret brain activity. His startup, Hemispheric, has emerged from stealth mode with $52 million in funding. The Tel Aviv-based company identifies itself as a NeuroAI firm, and its proposition is straightforward: it wants brain assessments to become as commonplace as blood tests.

      The founding duo is quite unique. Hagai Lalazar, a computational neuroscientist, serves as the CEO, while Gidi Littwin, who co-founded RealFace and contributed to the development of Face ID, takes on the role of CTO. He later worked on the AI technology behind Apple’s Vision Pro.

      Their system, named Descartes, contains 6 billion parameters and has been trained on 250,000 hours of brain recordings from over 100,000 individuals. Hemispheric claims this is one of the broadest datasets available in this sector.

      The testing process is non-invasive. A patient wears a dry EEG headset for 15 minutes and interacts with tasks via a smartphone, as reported by WIRED. Descartes converts the brain’s electrical activity into quantifiable data that physicians can utilize.

      The focus is on conditions that lack objective assessment methods. Hemispheric cites disorders such as depression, PTSD, mild traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s, most of which are currently evaluated using questionnaires and interviews.

      This stands in stark contrast to the most prominent name in the field, Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which performs surgical implants in the skull. In contrast, Hemispheric, similar to China’s BrainCo, is banking on brain technology being worn rather than surgically implanted.

      The funding round attracted a diverse array of investors, including Hanaco Ventures, Protocol Labs, L Catterton, and Scott Belsky, the founder of Behance.

      This funding comes amidst a surge of investment in AI health initiatives. Neko Health recently secured $700 million for body scanning technology, Chai Discovery garnered $400 million for AI-driven drug design, and an OpenAI researcher has departed to create a $2 billion drug startup.

      Hemispheric has already presented Descartes to the FDA and aims to launch its product in the US and Europe. However, caution persists across the medical AI landscape, as this technology has encountered challenges in clinical settings, and a model aimed at brain diagnostics will inevitably face scrutiny. For now, the company possesses the necessary funding, the experience, and a bold vision.