Berkeley based Sonera raises 11M seed round

Sonera, a Berkeley, CA-based neural data company, raised $11M in Seed funding.

The round, which brought the total amount to $20M, was led by Amplify Partners with participation from Abstract Ventures and existing investors Spark Capital, Material Impact, Boom Capital and angel investor Josh Duyan, CTRL-Labs CSO and co-founder and others.

The company intends to use the funds to make neural data accessible for a range of applications, from personal computing and smart apparel to healthcare and neurotherapeutics.

Led by CEO Nishita Deka, Sonera is making neural data accessible to the masses through its sensing technology, which non-invasively detects magnetic signals generated by neural activity, to make brain activity as easy to measure as heart rate, temperature, and other physiological signals, and enable data-backed insights related to movement, health, thoughts, and emotions. This makes neural data useful for a wide range of applications, from personal computing to healthcare and beyond.

The first application of Sonera’s technology is the S1 chip for muscle sensing, which is poised to enable an entirely new class of consumer wearables and experiences based on muscle activity. This approach, which measures magnetic fields produced by the electrical currents from neural activity, eliminates the need for direct skin contact while still measuring high-fidelity signals. The S1 chip will enable use cases including advanced prosthetics control, continuous monitoring of neuromuscular conditions, discovery of disease biomarkers, and sport performance tracking.