Hemispheric emerged from stealth with $52 million in early-stage funding to launch Descartes, a frontier NeuroAI model designed to decode non-invasive brain activity and translate it into objective, actionable insights for clinicians and researchers. The funding came from Hanaco Ventures, OneMind/Awareness Capital, Protocol Labs, L Catterton, Arkin Capital, Howard Morgan, Naomi Azrieli, Yasmin Lukatz, Scott Belsky, and other investors. Hemispheric was co-founded by computational neuroscientist Hagai Lalazar, Ph.D., and Gidi Littwin, who previously co-founded RealFace, which was acquired by Apple and contributed technology to Face ID.
Hemispheric is developing a foundational platform intended to improve how brain function is measured and understood. While physicians have long relied on objective diagnostic tools for organs such as the heart and lungs, many neurological and psychiatric conditions are still assessed primarily through questionnaires, patient-reported symptoms, and behavioral observation.
The company said this lack of objective measurement contributes to trial-and-error treatment approaches for conditions including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease, anxiety, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injuries, and early cognitive decline. Neuropsychiatric disorders affect approximately one-third of the global population and are estimated to generate more than $5.3 trillion in annual economic costs.
Descartes is trained to interpret the brain’s electrical activity in a manner similar to how large language models process text or computer vision systems interpret images. The model converts neural signals into quantitative information that could help clinicians detect disease earlier, distinguish among different forms of a disorder, select treatments, and monitor patient responses over time.
Using the platform does not require surgery or lengthy testing procedures. A patient wears a lightweight, dry electroencephalography headset for approximately 15 minutes while interacting with an application on a tablet or smartphone. The system records brain activity and generates objective results that can support diagnosis, treatment selection, and ongoing monitoring.
Descartes was trained on a proprietary dataset containing more than 250,000 hours of multimodal EEG and behavioral recordings from over 100,000 participants. Hemispheric assembled the data through a global research network and built specialized laboratories, collection systems, and AI infrastructure designed specifically for neural information.
The platform is the result of more than six years of research, hardware and software engineering, and data collection. Hemispheric has built a 112-person interdisciplinary team spanning neuroscience, artificial intelligence, medical systems, psychiatry, neurology, and clinical research.
The first applications for Descartes will focus on precision brain health and conditions including PTSD, mild traumatic brain injury, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Hemispheric has demonstrated the platform to leadership at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health and is pursuing a broader regulatory strategy.
The company is also working with government agencies, healthcare organizations, and pharmaceutical partners to deploy the technology, initially focusing on the United States and European markets.
Hemispheric plans to use the funding to expand deployments of Descartes, grow its global brain-data network, advance regulatory pathways for precision diagnostics, and scale its U.S. operations.
KEY QUOTES:
“Every major organ in the body has objective tests, except the brain. Each person’s brain is unique, like a snowflake, which is why current attempts at one-size-fits-all treatments fall short. We are working toward a future where you walk into your primary care office, get a brain test as routine as a blood draw, and leave with information you and your clinician can actually use to improve your health.”
Hagai Lalazar, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Hemispheric
“Non-invasive neurotechnology is the only path to democratizing brain health. The challenge has always been variability: the same brain signal can look completely different across individuals. At a very large scale, it becomes something you can model, making it possible to measure brain function accurately and use it in real-world settings without surgery.”
Gidi Littwin, Co-Founder and CTO of Hemispheric
“Hemispheric is doing for the brain what genomics did for cancer: turning something historically unmeasurable into data that can be modeled, understood, and acted on. This has the promise to be foundational infrastructure for the next era of medicine, and the implications for healthcare, research, and human performance are unlike anything we have seen in a generation.”
Garen Staglin, Founder of One Mind and General Partner at Awareness Capital
