LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Convergent Research today announced a new $14 million funding commitment from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to Forest Neurotech, an initiative designed to create next-generation brain-computer-interfaces (BCIs) for individuals with neurological injuries or diseases. In addition to support from Eric Schmidt, Forest Neurotech has received funding from Griffin Catalyst, the philanthropic organization of Citadel CEO Kenneth C. Griffin, the Riley & Susan Bechtel Foundation, and James Fickel.

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Forest Neurotech is developing a novel ultrasound-based BCI that can sense and modulate the whole brain without penetrating it. Most BCIs rely on invasive procedures that access a limited region of the brain while damaging brain tissue and causing harmful biological responses. Forest’s ultrasound technology reaches deep into the brain, providing researchers with a minimally invasive platform to develop diagnostics, monitoring, and therapeutics across the whole brain. This revolutionary approach opens a wide range of potential applications, from mitigating seizures to treating severe depression and more.

Operating as a Focused Research Organization (FRO), Forest Neurotech is a new breed of non-profit startup. FROs are an innovative funding structure pioneered by Convergent Research, to support moonshot efforts that create new scientific tools and datasets. Forest’s state-of-the-art tools, research, and discoveries will be shared with the broader scientific community, aligning with Convergent Research’s commitment to open science.

Forest Neurotech was founded by Sumner Norman, Tyson Aflalo, and Will Biederman, leveraging recent advances in ultrasound neurotechnologies.

Convergent Research is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that pioneers the launch of Focused Research Organizations (FROs) to unblock research bottlenecks. We act as a venture creation studio for our subsidiary FROs, providing operational, financial, and legal support. Our core mission is to identify and undertake audacious “moonshot” scientific endeavors that are large-scale, systematic, and promise significant societal benefits—and which could not be addressed in our current scientific funding environment.

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