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Merge Labs is an American brain-computer interface (BCI) research company co-founded by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, the BCI researchers Mikhail Shapiro, Tyson Aflalo and Sumner Norman, and the technology entrepreneurs Alex Blania and Sandro Herbig.[1][2] It describes itself as "a research lab with the long-term mission of bridging biological and artificial intelligence to maximize human ability, agency, and experience."[1] The company says it is developing interfaces that "connect with neurons using molecules instead of electrodes, transmit and receive information using deep-reaching modalities like ultrasound, and avoid implants into brain tissue."[1] Merge Labs was spun out of Forest Neurotech, a Los Angeles nonprofit that had been building an ultrasound-based brain interface,[3][4] and it came out of stealth on January 15, 2026, with $252 million in seed funding from investors including OpenAI, Bain Capital, Interface Fund, Fifty Years and Gabe Newell.[5][6] In September 2026 it announced a multi-year agreement to license Butterfly Network's ultrasound-on-chip semiconductor technology.[5]

FieldValue
TypePrivate company; public benefit corporation[1]
Formed2025, in stealth; public launch January 15, 2026[7][3][1]
Co-foundersTyson Aflalo, Sam Altman, Alex Blania, Sandro Herbig, Sumner Norman, Mikhail Shapiro[1][5]
LocationSan Francisco Bay Area, California[6][8]
FocusBrain-computer interfaces that avoid implants in brain tissue, using ultrasound, engineered molecules and AI[1][2]
OriginSpin-out of Forest Neurotech (since renamed Arbor Neuroscience)[4][9]
Funding$252 million seed round, announced January 2026[5][6]
Investors named at launchOpenAI (largest investor), Bain Capital (lead), Interface Fund, Fifty Years, Gabe Newell[6][10]
Hardware partnerButterfly Network (ultrasound-on-chip license, September 2026)[5]
Websitemerge.io

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History

The "merge" idea

The company's name comes from "the merge," a Silicon Valley term for the hypothetical point at which humans and machine intelligence combine.[4] Altman wrote about the idea in a 2017 blog post.[3] In it he observed that most guesses for when humans and machines would merge fell "between 2025 and 2075," said he believed "the merge has already started," and predicted that "superhuman AI is going to happen, genetic enhancement is going to happen, and brain-machine interfaces are going to happen."[11] He wrote that the merge "can take a lot of forms: We could plug electrodes into our brains, or we could all just become really close friends with a chatbot," and called a merge "probably our best-case scenario," reasoning that if two different species both wanted to be dominant, "they are going to have conflict."[11] Altman had earlier invested in Elon Musk's implant company Neuralink, according to Wired.[4]

Early reports (2025)

On August 12, 2025, TechCrunch, citing the Financial Times, reported that Altman was in the process of co-founding a BCI startup called Merge Labs, that its funding might come largely from OpenAI's ventures team, and that it was expected to be valued at $850 million. A source told TechCrunch that talks were still early and that OpenAI had not yet committed.[7] According to Wired's later summary, the Financial Times also reported that Merge was aiming to raise $250 million and that Altman was co-founding the company without personally investing in it.[3] Wired also relayed two other reports from 2025: Bloomberg had reported in August that Merge was considering combining an ultrasound device with gene therapy, ostensibly to make certain brain cells more responsive to sound waves, and The Verge had reported that the Caltech researcher Mikhail Shapiro had been tapped for the venture.[3]

On December 19, 2025, Wired reported, citing a source with direct knowledge of the plans, that Merge Labs was being spun out of Forest Neurotech and that Forest's chief executive Sumner Norman and chief scientific officer Tyson Aflalo were among its cofounders. The company was still in stealth at the time.[3]

Launch (January 2026)

Merge Labs announced itself on January 15, 2026, in a post that lists its six co-founders.[1] The post said its goal requires increasing "the bandwidth and brain coverage of BCIs by several orders of magnitude while making them much less invasive," that the work "demands that we think in decades rather than years," and that the company would start as a research lab.[1] It named its ultimate measure of success as real products, first for patients with injury or disease and later to advance human capability more broadly.[1]

OpenAI published a post the same day saying it was taking part in the seed round because "BCIs will create a natural, human-centered way for anyone to seamlessly interact with AI." It described Altman's role as a co-founder "in a personal capacity."[2] Bloomberg reported that Merge had raised $252 million and had not disclosed its valuation; an OpenAI spokesperson told Bloomberg that OpenAI was the largest investor in the round, which Bain Capital led.[6] TechCrunch reported that a source familiar with the matter confirmed earlier reports that OpenAI wrote the largest single check in a $250 million seed round at an $850 million valuation.[10] Butterfly Network's later press release, issued jointly with Merge, gave the seed total as $252 million.[5]

At launch, Bloomberg reported, Merge had an office in the San Francisco area, fewer than 50 employees and no president or chief executive.[6] Blania and Herbig said they would keep their roles at Tools for Humanity, and Shapiro intended to continue teaching at Caltech; Merge told TechCrunch that Forest Neurotech would continue operating and would have a "wonderful working relationship" with Merge.[10] Convergent Research, the incubator behind Forest, wrote that Merge's team and initial technical direction "have roots in Forest Neurotech," that Merge would "invest deeply in long-horizon R&D," and that the Forest nonprofit would continue to expand scientific partnerships in parallel.[12]

Butterfly Network agreement (September 2026)

On September 1, 2026, Butterfly Network and Merge Labs announced a multi-year licensing agreement, made through Butterfly's licensing and co-development business Butterfly Embedded, that gives Merge access to Butterfly's Poseidon family of Ultrasound-on-Chip technology for developing ultrasound-based BCIs.[5] Under the deal Butterfly serves as Merge's exclusive CMOS-MEMS chip-based ultrasound partner, while keeping the right to license its technology to other companies in the field. The agreement includes upfront and milestone-based license payments, hardware purchase commitments and technology access fees to Butterfly, with ongoing royalties expected on future commercial sales; the announcement did not state the total value.[5] "We believe ultrasound has tremendous potential to enable a new generation of neural interfaces," Aflalo said in the release.[5] The announcement came the day before Butterfly's first BCI Innovation Summit, an invitation-only event scheduled for September 2, 2026.[5]

Butterfly had already worked with Merge's predecessor: in 2023 it entered a five-year collaboration with Forest Neurotech to develop a whole-brain neural interface that could use ultrasound to image and stimulate the brain.[13] Its chips are also used by others in the field. In October 2026 Wired reported that Bridge Neurotech, a new ultrasound BCI startup, was using Butterfly's silicon chips in the probes for its first clinical study.[9]

Founders

Merge Labs lists six co-founders.[1] A Merge spokesperson told TechCrunch that the co-founders also serve as the company's board members.[10]

Co-founderBackground and other roles
Tyson AflaloCo-founder and chief scientific officer of Forest Neurotech, who says he spent more than a decade developing implantable neural technologies.[14] Wired, citing his LinkedIn profile, reported that he was previously executive director of Caltech's T&C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center.[3] Lead author of a 2015 Science paper on decoding motor imagery from the posterior parietal cortex of a tetraplegic person.[15]
Sam AltmanChief executive of OpenAI. OpenAI describes him as a Merge co-founder in a personal capacity.[2]
Alex BlaniaChief executive of Tools for Humanity, the company that makes the eye-scanning World orbs; said he would stay in that role.[10]
Sandro HerbigProduct and engineering lead at Tools for Humanity; said he would stay in that role.[10]
Sumner NormanCo-founder of Forest Neurotech in 2023 and its founding chief executive.[16][12] Former senior postdoctoral researcher at Caltech, where he worked with the Andersen and Shapiro laboratories on functional ultrasound brain-machine interfaces.[17][18]
Mikhail ShapiroMax Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering at Caltech and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.[17] A Hertz Fellow who joined Caltech in 2014, he is known for showing that air-filled protein structures from microbes can be detected with ultrasound.[19] He was an adviser to Forest Neurotech before Merge's launch.[3]

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Bloomberg reported that Altman sits on Merge's board in a personal capacity, which an OpenAI spokesperson said means he could keep the seat if he stopped being OpenAI's chief executive. OpenAI holds the right to a board observer seat, which had not been filled at launch, and according to Merge, the board consisted of Altman and four other co-founders and no one else.[6]

Origins in Forest Neurotech

Forest Neurotech was a nonprofit focused research organization (FRO) that launched in 2023 out of Convergent Research, a philanthropic incubator.[3] Wired reported that it was founded by Will Biederman, Sumner Norman and Tyson Aflalo.[9] Convergent Research credited the funders who enabled Forest's 2023 start as Eric and Wendy Schmidt, Griffin Catalyst, the Riley and Susan Bechtel Foundation, James Fickel, the United Kingdom's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and an anonymous donor.[12]

Forest's device was a miniaturized version of a standard ultrasound machine, designed both to read brain activity and to stimulate it with focused sound waves. Forest was interested in using it for mental health disorders and brain injury, and the device entered an early safety study in the UK supported by ARIA.[3] According to Convergent Research, Forest produced the first functional brain imaging data in humans recorded with an ultrasound-on-chip device, worked with clinicians at the UCLA neuro-ICU and Cedars-Sinai, released an open-source ultrasound beamformer accelerated with CUDA, and reported bedside detection of "cognitive motor dissociation" (sometimes called hidden consciousness) in a comatose patient.[12]

Forest has since been renamed Arbor Neuroscience. It describes itself as a nonprofit FRO within Convergent Research whose work on neuromodulation starts from Forest's ultrasound platform.[20] Wired reported in October 2026 that both Merge Labs and Bridge Neurotech, a wearable ultrasound BCI startup founded by Biederman, have ties to the organization.[9] Neurofounders, a neurotechnology publication, noted that the split of intellectual property, personnel and responsibilities between Forest and Merge had not been explained publicly.[21]

Technical approach

Functional ultrasound

Most BCIs, including those from Neuralink and Synchron, measure electrical activity directly from neurons. An ultrasound-based device instead infers neural activity indirectly from changes in the brain's blood flow.[4] When a brain region becomes more active, blood flow to it rises, and functional ultrasound (fUS) measures this through the Doppler shift of sound reflected by moving red blood cells, at a spatial resolution of about 100 micrometers.[22] Wired noted that an ultrasound interface would not need to be implanted in the brain itself but would likely still require a "window" in the skull,[3] since the skull is not permeable to sound waves.[17]

Norman and Shapiro were among the authors of a series of Caltech studies, run by the laboratories of Richard Andersen and Mikhail Shapiro with Mickael Tanter's group in Paris, that developed fUS as a brain-machine interface.[22][17]

YearPaperMerge co-founders among authorsReported result
2021Norman et al., "Single-trial decoding of movement intentions using functional ultrasound neuroimaging," Neuron[23]Norman, ShapiroIn non-human primates, a machine learning decoder applied to fUS images of the posterior parietal cortex predicted the type, direction and timing of planned movements.[22]
2024 (online November 2023)Griggs et al., "Decoding motor plans using a closed-loop ultrasonic brain-machine interface," Nature Neuroscience[24]Norman, ShapiroAn online, closed-loop fUS interface let primates move a cursor to eight targets with mean errors under 40 degrees, without daily recalibration.[17]
2024Rabut et al., "Functional ultrasound imaging of human brain activity through an acoustically transparent cranial window," Science Translational Medicine[25]Norman, ShapirofUS imaged an adult patient's brain through a skull implant fitted after a craniectomy, outside the hospital, while the patient played a video game and a guitar.[18]

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The method has known limits. The University of Southern California neuroengineer Maryam Shanechi told Wired that because ultrasound measures activity indirectly from blood, there is a delay of a few seconds between neural firing and the change in blood flow, so it "captures a slower variation in neural activity"; Wired noted that this lag could be a challenge for fast tasks such as rapid typing.[9] Caltech's own account of the 2024 study notes that implanted microelectrode arrays have higher temporal resolution and can record single neurons.[18]

Molecular interfaces

Merge says it will connect with neurons "using molecules instead of electrodes."[1] The Hertz Foundation traced the company back to Shapiro's research on biomolecules that can be detected with ultrasound.[19] As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, Shapiro found that gas vesicles, air-filled protein structures from blue-green algae, produce a signal detectable with ultrasound.[19] The work was published in 2014, with Shapiro as first author, as "Biogenic gas nanostructures as ultrasonic molecular reporters,"[26] and his Caltech laboratory later reported "acoustic reporter genes" for noninvasive imaging of microorganisms inside mammals.[27] The Hertz Foundation described Merge's approach as combining ultrasound imaging with biomolecules that respond to sound waves, and reported that several former members of Shapiro's lab had joined the company.[19]

As of October 2026 Merge's careers page listed openings, all in the San Francisco Bay Area, for scientists in viral and non-viral gene delivery, ultrasound-mediated gene delivery, synthetic biology and in vivo molecular neurotechnology; a protein engineer for biosensors; machine learning research scientists in de novo design and computational biophysics; a computational imaging and signal processing engineer; and an electrical engineer for its device team.[8]

Role of AI

OpenAI said AI would "accelerate research and development including bioengineering, neuroscience and device engineering," and that "high-bandwidth interfaces will benefit from AI operating systems that can interpret intent, adapt to individuals, and operate reliably with limited and noisy signals." It said it would work with Merge on scientific foundation models and other frontier tools.[2] Bloomberg reported that at a dinner with journalists in August 2025, Altman said he would like to be able to think something and have ChatGPT respond to it.[6]

Funding

DateEventAmountValuationInvestorsStatus
August 2025Reported fundraising talksAbout $250 million sought[3]Expected to be about $850 million, per the Financial Times as reported by TechCrunch[7]Capital expected to come largely from OpenAI's ventures team[7]Early talks; OpenAI had not committed[7]
January 15, 2026Seed round$252 million[6][5]Not disclosed by the company;[6] $850 million according to a source cited by TechCrunch[10]Bain Capital (lead), OpenAI (largest investor), Interface Fund, Fifty Years, Gabe Newell and others[6][10]Closed

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Bloomberg, citing PitchBook data, reported that among major BCI companies only Neuralink had raised more in a single round. It also noted that Newell, the Valve co-founder, runs his own brain technology company, Starfish Neuroscience, and that Merge said it had no immediate plans to raise more money.[6] Julia Prakapovich, managing partner at Interface Fund, told TechCrunch that the founding team was a large part of the firm's decision, saying its members "bring the convergence needed to integrate biology, hardware, and AI into a single system."[10]

Goals

Merge's launch post says the company wants to "restore lost abilities, support healthier brain states, deepen our connection with each other, and expand what we can imagine and create alongside advanced AI," and that it will share progress and tools along the way.[1] Bloomberg reported that the company plans to develop products for medical use first and for the general public later; Shapiro told Bloomberg that the goal is not to implant the technology in the brain, and that the hard scientific and engineering problems this requires are why Merge was set up as a research lab.[6] "One of our core beliefs is that we can build brain computer interfaces that can interface with many more neurons in the brain than is possible with existing technologies in a form factor that is much less invasive," Shapiro told the Hertz Foundation.[19] Neurofounders wrote, in an analysis updated after the Butterfly deal, that Merge had yet to outline specific product targets, clinical indications or deployment timelines.[21]

Reception

TechCrunch's Rebecca Bellan presented OpenAI's investment as an example of "circular" deals. She argued that if Merge succeeds it could drive more users to OpenAI, and that the investment "increases the value of a startup Altman owns using resources from a company he runs."[10] Neurofounders likewise said OpenAI's dual role as investor and collaborator adds governance complexity, and that Merge had not detailed how oversight and independence are structured.[21] The Register pointed to Merge's own "decades rather than years" framing and recalled that Facebook moved away from BCI research in 2021 to focus on wrist-based electromyography.[28]

Coverage also placed Merge in a crowded field. Longevity.Technology listed Neuralink, Synchron, Blackrock Neurotech, Precision Neuroscience, Science Corporation and Inbrain Neuroelectronics as well-funded companies pursuing implanted or minimally invasive devices, in contrast to Merge's approach.[29] In March 2026 TechCrunch described Merge as among the largest of several US ultrasound BCI startups, in an article about the Chinese ultrasound BCI company Gestala.[30]

Debarghya Das's "The Ultimate Neolab List," a list of well-funded AI research startups (updated October 24, 2026), includes Merge Labs with a listed valuation of $850 million but marks it "Not a neolab," on the grounds that it works on "BCI hardware and medical devices, not mainly software."[31]

See also

References

  1. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11 ^12 ^13Merge Labs. "Introducing Merge Labs". January 15, 2026.
  2. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5OpenAI. "Investing in Merge Labs". January 15, 2026.
  3. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11 ^12Mullin, Emily. "Sam Altman's New Brain Venture, Merge Labs, Will Spin Out of a Nonprofit". Wired, December 19, 2025.
  4. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Mullin, Emily. "OpenAI Invests in Sam Altman's New Brain-Tech Startup Merge Labs". Wired, January 15, 2026.
  5. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11Butterfly Network. "Merge Labs and Butterfly Network Partner to Advance Ultrasound-Based Brain-Computer Interfaces". Press release (Business Wire), September 1, 2026.
  6. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10 ^11 ^12 ^13Swetlitz, Ike. "Merge, la empresa de Altman, recauda US$252 millones para conectar cerebros y computadoras". Bloomberg Línea (Bloomberg News, in Spanish), January 15, 2026.
  7. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Bort, Julie. "Sam Altman, OpenAI will reportedly back a startup that takes on Musk's Neuralink". TechCrunch, August 12, 2025.
  8. ^1 ^2Merge Labs. "Careers". Accessed October 27, 2026.
  9. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Mullin, Emily. "A New Neurotech Startup Launches to Rival Sam Altman's Merge Labs". Wired, October 6, 2026.
  10. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8 ^9 ^10Bellan, Rebecca. "OpenAI invests in Sam Altman's brain computer interface startup Merge Labs". TechCrunch, January 15, 2026.
  11. ^1 ^2Altman, Sam. "The Merge". Sam Altman's blog, 2017.
  12. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4Gamick, Anastasia; Marblestone, Adam; Fridman, Joseph. "Announcing Merge Labs". Essential Technology (Convergent Research), January 15, 2026.
  13. ^Digital Health News. "Sam Altman-Backed Merge Labs & Butterfly Network Partner to Advance Ultrasound-Based Brain-Computer Interfaces". September 4, 2026.
  14. ^Convergent Research. "Tyson Aflalo". Team profile, accessed October 27, 2026.
  15. ^Aflalo, T.; Kellis, S.; Klaes, C.; et al. "Decoding motor imagery from the posterior parietal cortex of a tetraplegic human". Science 348 (2015).
  16. ^Convergent Research. "Sumner Norman". Team profile, accessed October 27, 2026.
  17. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5California Institute of Technology. "Ultrasound Enables Less-Invasive Brain-Machine Interfaces". Caltech News, November 30, 2023.
  18. ^1 ^2 ^3California Institute of Technology. "A Window into the Brain". Caltech News, May 30, 2024.
  19. ^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5Hertz Foundation. "Reading Minds Without Surgery: Hertz Fellow Launches $250M Brain-Computer Interface Effort". February 27, 2026.
  20. ^Arbor Neuroscience. "Arbor Neuroscience" (homepage; formerly forestneurotech.org). Accessed October 27, 2026.
  21. ^1 ^2 ^3Neurofounders. "Merge Labs: Sam Altman's $252M Ultrasound BCI Venture". Accessed October 27, 2026.
  22. ^1 ^2 ^3California Institute of Technology. "Reading Minds with Ultrasound: A Less-Invasive Technique to Decode the Brain's Intentions". Caltech News, March 22, 2021.
  23. ^Norman, S. L.; Maresca, D.; Christopoulos, V. N.; Griggs, W. S.; Demene, C.; Tanter, M.; Shapiro, M. G.; Andersen, R. A. "Single-trial decoding of movement intentions using functional ultrasound neuroimaging". Neuron 109 (2021).
  24. ^Griggs, W. S.; Norman, S. L.; Deffieux, T.; et al. "Decoding motor plans using a closed-loop ultrasonic brain-machine interface". Nature Neuroscience 27 (2024).
  25. ^Rabut, C.; Norman, S. L.; Griggs, W. S.; et al. "Functional ultrasound imaging of human brain activity through an acoustically transparent cranial window". Science Translational Medicine 16 (2024).
  26. ^Shapiro, M. G.; Goodwill, P. W.; Neogy, A.; et al. "Biogenic gas nanostructures as ultrasonic molecular reporters". Nature Nanotechnology 9 (2014).
  27. ^Bourdeau, R. W.; Lee-Gosselin, A.; Lakshmanan, A.; et al. "Acoustic reporter genes for noninvasive imaging of microorganisms in mammalian hosts". Nature 553 (2018).
  28. ^Claburn, Thomas. "OpenAI invests in brain-interface biz co-founded by CEO Sam Altman". The Register, January 16, 2026.
  29. ^Sullivan, Danny. "Sam Altman's BCI startup Merge Labs launches with funding from OpenAI". Longevity.Technology, January 16, 2026.
  30. ^Park, Kate. "Chinese brain interface startup Gestala raises $21M just two months after launch". TechCrunch, March 11, 2026.
  31. ^Das, Debarghya. "The Ultimate Neolab List". Updated October 24, 2026.

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Reviewer note: Founders, seed financing, board and OpenAI arrangements, Forest Neurotech origins and the Butterfly Network deal checked against Merge Labs, OpenAI and Butterfly announcements, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Wired and The Register, plus the cited research papers, October 2026.

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