OpenAI has put money into Merge Labs, a brain computer interface startup connected to Sam Altman, bringing one of Silicon Valley’s biggest AI companies closer to a field that aims to link human biology with computing.
Merge Labs came out of stealth on Thursday with an undisclosed seed round. A source familiar with the matter confirmed previous reports that OpenAI wrote the largest single check in Merge Labs’ $250 million seed round at an $850 million valuation.
What Merge Labs Is Trying To Build
Merge Labs describes itself as a “research lab” focused on “bridging biological and artificial intelligence to maximize human ability.” Its public message is broad: the company is not presenting brain computer interfaces only as a medical technology, but as a path toward deeper interaction between people and advanced AI.
The company’s own statement frames the brain as the starting point. “Our individual experience of the world arises from billions of active neurons,” Merge Labs said. “If we can interface with these neurons at scale, we could restore lost abilities, support healthier brain states, deepen our connection with each other, and expand what we can imagine and create alongside advanced AI.”
That goal places Merge Labs inside the wider BCI race, but its proposed route is different from the most visible implant-based approaches. Merge Labs said it intends to work noninvasively by developing “entirely new technologies that connect with neurons using molecules instead of electrodes” and using “deep-reaching modalities like ultrasound” to send and receive information.
The distinction matters because the source article contrasts Merge Labs with Neuralink, Elon Musk’s startup. Neuralink is also developing computer interface chips for people who suffer from severe paralysis, allowing them to control devices with their thoughts. Its current method requires invasive surgery, including a surgical robot that removes a small piece of skull and inserts ultra-fine electrode threads into the brain to read neural signals.
Why OpenAI Is Involved
OpenAI presented the investment as part of its view that brain computer interfaces could become a major interface layer for AI. In a blog post, OpenAI wrote: “Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) are an important new frontier.”
The company added that BCIs “open new ways to communicate, learn, and interact with technology” and could create “a natural, human-centered way for anyone to seamlessly interact with AI.” That reasoning explains why OpenAI is participating in Merge Labs’ seed round.
OpenAI will also work with Merge Labs on scientific foundation models and other frontier tools to “accelerate progress.” According to OpenAI, AI could help speed work in bioengineering, neuroscience, and device engineering. The company also said BCI systems could benefit from AI operating systems that “can interpret intent, adapt to individuals, and operate reliably with limited and noisy signals.”
In practical terms, that means Merge Labs could become a new kind of interface for OpenAI’s software if the technology works. The source article describes that possibility as part of the circular nature of the deal: a successful Merge Labs could send more users toward OpenAI, while OpenAI’s investment could raise the value of a startup Altman owns using resources from a company he runs.
The People And Investors Behind The Startup
Merge Labs has a founding team that connects AI, hardware, neuroscience, and biology. Aside from Altman, the co-founders include Alex Blania, CEO at Tools for Humanity; Sandro Herbig, product and engineering lead at Tools for Humanity; Tyson Aflalo and Sumner Norman, co-founders of implantable neural tech company Forest Neurotech; and Mikhail Shapiro, a researcher at Caltech.
Investment firms Bain Capital, Interface Fund and Fifty Years also participated in the raise, alongside video game developer Gabe Newell. Seth Bannon, a founding partner at Fifty Years, wrote on X that Merge represents the culmination of the human effort to build tools that “extend ourselves and our capabilities.”
Julia Prakapovich, managing partner at Interface Fund, told TechCrunch that the team was a major reason for the investment. She said the founders “bring the convergence needed to integrate biology, hardware, and AI into a single system” that could make BCI feasible.
Blania and Herbig said in separate social media posts that they would continue their roles at Tools for Humanity. Merge Labs did not confirm whether Alfalo and Norman would maintain their positions at Forest Neurotech, saying only that the company would continue operating and will have a “wonderful working relationship” with Merge. Shapiro intends to continue teaching at Caltech.
A spokesperson told TechCrunch that the co-founders are also Merge Labs’ board members.
The Competition And The Circular Deal Question
The investment deepens Altman’s competition with Elon Musk. Neuralink last raised a $650 million Series E at a $9 billion valuation in June 2025. Both companies are working in the same broad BCI category, but the source article draws a clear contrast between Neuralink’s invasive surgical approach and Merge Labs’ stated plan to pursue noninvasive technologies.
The medical potential of BCIs is clear from the examples in the source: restoring lost abilities and helping people with severe paralysis control devices through thought. But Merge Labs also appears to be aimed at a more expansive idea: using BCI technology to combine human biology with AI and support capabilities beyond today’s human-computer interfaces.
That ambition connects directly to Altman’s long-running interest in the “merge,” the idea that humans and machines will merge. In 2017, he published a blog post guessing it would happen somewhere between 2025 and 2075. He speculated that the merge could take many forms, including plugging electrons into our brains or becoming “really close friends with a chatbot.”
Altman described a merge as humanity’s “best-case scenario” for surviving against superintelligence AI, which he described as a separate species in conflict with humans. “Although the merge has already begun, it’s going to get a lot weirder,” he wrote. “We will be the first species ever to design our own descendants. My guess is that we can either be the biological bootloader for digital intelligence and then fade into an evolutionary tree branch, or we can figure out what a successful merge looks like.”
Why This Matters Now
OpenAI is already working on other AI hardware efforts. The source article notes its work with Jony Ive’s startup io, which it acquired last year, to produce a piece of AI hardware that does not rely on a screen. Recent unconfirmed leaks suggest the device might be an earbud.
OpenAI primarily invests through the OpenAI Startup Fund, which has invested in several other startups connected to Altman, including Red Queen Bio, Rain AI, and Harvey. OpenAI has also entered into commercial agreements with startups Altman personally owns or chairs, including nuclear fusion startup Helion Energy and nuclear fission company Oklo.
Seen together, the Merge Labs deal is not just another startup investment. It sits at the intersection of brain computer interfaces, AI hardware, foundation models, and questions about how closely OpenAI’s future products could be tied to companies connected to Altman.
TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI and Merge Labs for more information. The article was updated to confirm that Merge Labs’ founders will continue work at their respective companies, and with more details about other fund participants.