Avery Bedows and Doug Clinton are part of Loup Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in frontier technology. In this episode, which is the first of a quarterly series on neurotech news, they discuss recent events regarding investment in neurotech companies as well as growths and developments within the neurotech industry.

Top three takeaways:

1. Companies can sometimes look at the value of an investment not just in terms of revenue, but in terms of gaining a strong foothold in an upcoming area of development
2. The Neuralink presentation gave more of a long-term view of future goals, in an attempt to increase their hiring and rein in excitement
3. By 2020, there will be a lot more neurotech startups and overall more capital present within the industry, and lots of opportunities for investors

[0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and his guests, Avery Bedows and Doug Clinton, who are with Loup Ventures

[2:00] Facebook acquired CTRL-labs for $500 million, Avery discusses the significance of this

[5:00] There is discussion over whether Facebook is more interested in brain-computer interfaces or VR

[8:45] The value of the investment is explored and it is discussed whether Facebook acquired CTRL-labs more for monetary gain or as a way to truly enter the field of VR/AR

[12:00] Thomas Reardon, a co-founder of CTRL-labs and inventor of Internet Explorer, knew that his product reached a lot of people, but wasn't part of a full-blown platform, so he needed to plug it into a company that provided the full-blown platform

[15:10] Topic switches to Neuralink, Ladan and the guests discuss their thoughts on the Neuralink presentation where Elon Musk discusses the automation of electrode-thread implantation

[18:20] Avery discusses what he found most interesting about the whole presentation and how he interprets it

[21:50] Avery discusses some motivations for being in neuro that he has found in people

[25:45] Doug mentions that the future of interface with which we communicate may be related to VR/AR, beyond that it may tie to direct interface with brain

[27:40] Topic switches to Loup Ventures' investment in Rune Labs, Avery and Doug provide some background and opinions

[31:30] Big picture for Rune Labs is seeing data platform for intracranial data from the brain, using data to enable other development of medical applications

[33:30] There will likely be more capital in 2020 within this whole field, we will see info about young startups, lots of early stage neuro