Billionaire Reid Hoffman Bets $12M On This AI Brain Scanner To Rival Neuralink — Without Surgery Or Drugs
Sanmai is developing a non‑invasive, AI‑guided focused ultrasound headset to treat mental health disorders and improve cognitive function. The device is designed to sell for under $500, making clinic‑grade brain stimulation accessible at home. According to Bloomberg, this funding aligns with growing interest from billionaire investors in cutting‑edge brain science, such as Coinbase co‑founder Fred Ehrsam's Nudge and Elon Musk's Neuralink.
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Sanmai's headset uses low-intensity transcranial-focused ultrasound to target specific brain regions associated with conditions such as anxiety, depression, pain, epilepsy, and tremors, Bloomberg says. According to a LinkedIn post by neurotechnology research scientist and first employee at Sanmai Sharena Rice, an integrated AI companion guides treatment and helps determine which protocols are most effective, adapting the stimulation to each user's skull structure and brain activity.
The system compensates for skull variations and dynamically adjusts ultrasound parameters to maximize efficacy and safety. Rice confirmed in the LinkedIn post that combining AI with focused ultrasound enables precise deep‑brain stimulation without surgery.
Sanmai has developed an early clinical prototype of its device for generalized anxiety disorder. Bloomberg says that the company is also in discussions with the Food and Drug Administration as it prepares for formal clinical trials and regulatory review. Sanmai aims to validate its technology in clinical settings before expanding toward broader consumer availability.
"I thought it was very cool that it gives you a new instrument for dealing with a whole wide variety of brain things which are otherwise very difficult to deal with," Hoffman told Bloomberg. "Your toolset for dealing with things that are going wrong in the brain is very limited."
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Sanmai's low-intensity focused ultrasound system is designed to deliver energy through the skull, reaching precise areas of brain tissue without breaking the skin. According to Bloomberg, the technology, which stimulates neural activity by directing sound waves to specific targets, reflects more than ten years of academic research now transitioning into regulated clinical testing.
Sanmai founder Jay Sanguinetti began exploring brain stimulation as a graduate student, observing its effects on Parkinson's patients during invasive procedures. That experience laid the foundation for his pursuit of a safer, scalable alternative. "I saw every patient's life changed," he told Bloomberg. "But I got kind of bit by the bug of like, 'How do you do this but non-invasively and at scale?'"
The company's eight-person team, operating largely in stealth until now, is preparing for broader trials after initial testing began at a Sunnyvale, California clinic for patients with generalized anxiety disorder. While Sanmai's goal is to create a home-use device priced below $500, Bloomberg says that the path forward requires individualized calibration, including magnetic resonance imaging scans and real-time adjustments to ultrasound dosage, before moving beyond clinical settings.
"The way to do this safely and at scale is to first go through the clinics," Sanguinetti told Bloomberg. "Then leverage that data to go out to the consumer."Hoffman's investment in Sanmai comes at a time when private funding is playing an increasingly critical role in neuroscience innovation. With the U.S. government reducing its support for biomedical research, wealthy individuals like Hoffman are stepping in to advance technologies aimed at treating mental health disorders and neurological conditions, Bloomberg reports.
At a recent neuromodulation conference near Washington, dozens of scientists and clinicians voiced concern over federal funding cuts, including proposed reductions to the National Institutes of Health and the departure of more than 143 staffers from its neurological division. In this tightening environment, Bloomberg says that investors like Hoffman, who previously backed OpenAI, are becoming central to the development of next-generation brain technologies.
"Non-invasive is a much less risky approach for a significant benefit," Hoffman told Bloomberg. "The risk and difficulties in invasive strike me as very difficult to navigate and will take years, decades maybe."
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