Australia- and Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cortical Labs has closed a $10-million funding round led by Horizon Ventures, a Hong Kong-based private venture capital firm owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing.
Australia-based Blackbird Ventures, early-stage life sciences focused investor LifeX Ventures, Australia- and New Zealand-based Radar Ventures, and American not-for-profit venture capital firm In-Q-Tel participated in the funding round.
Cortical Labs plans to use the funding to to accelerate the commercialisation of its patented Biological Intelligence Operating System (biOS) and fulfil pre-orders, according to a press release.
The company is currently using clusters of lab-cultivated neurons from human stem cells to form a “DishBrain,” which is integrated into their patented biOS with a mixture of hard silicon and soft tissue.
“Our technology will shape and drive the next frontier of AI, and with this new round of capital, we are thrilled to keep accelerating research and development to bring the DishBrain to market this year,” said Hon Weng Chong, CEO and founder of Cortical Labs.
The company also plans to commercially develop a Cortical Labs 1 (CL1) system that will enable in-vitro cognitive testing for the life-sciences industry and make CL1 the premier development and experimentation platform for researchers in non-biological fields such as AI and engineering through the cloud deployment of its CL1 units.
Cortical Labs has partnered with UK-based biotech company bit.bio for the research and commercialisation of CL1 along with their academic partners at the Organoid Intelligence alliance spearheaded by Johns Hopkins University.