Some startups build apps. Others build movements. NextSense just raised $16 million to do both, one neuron at a time. The Mountain View crew led by Jonathan Berent didn’t come from the usual startup fairytale. This isn’t another two guys in a garage story. It’s a decade-long moonshot that started deep inside Google X, where Berent led a project called Heimdallr that asked a bigger question: what happens when computing doesn’t just live in your hand, but in sync with your mind? When that vision didn’t fit the corporate roadmap, he took the tech, the team, and a dream about decoding the brain, and walked.
Now he’s back with NextSense, a neurotech company that’s turning your earbuds into EEG labs. Real clinical-grade sensors, embedded in everyday wearables, decoding the waves that make you tick, sleep, and dream. Their Smartbuds don’t just listen to music; they listen to you. The company’s real-time EEG algorithms can detect brain states with precision, shifting audio feedback in the moment to boost deep sleep, enhance focus, and help you understand your own neural rhythm without the white lab coat or hospital bill. This isn’t self-tracking anymore, it’s self-tuning.
The Series A was led by Ascension Ventures with support from Satori Neuro, Corundum Neuroscience Fund, and a roster that reads like a TED stage: David Eagleman, PhD, the Stanford neuroscientist behind Livewired; Esther Dyson, the tech investor who’s been betting on health before it was trendy; and Bradley Horowitz, the former Google product legend turned VC at Wisdom Ventures. It was an oversubscribed round, which is Silicon Valley’s polite way of saying: everyone wanted in.
NextSense has spent the last few years in the trenches, building clinical partnerships with Stanford, Harvard, Mayo Clinic, and Emory, while generating over $5.5 million in pharmaceutical validation contracts. The real magic, though, dropped at CES 2025, where the Smartbuds hit the world stage and drew the kind of coverage startups dream about: CNET, The Washington Post, Fox News. And when the NFLPA shortlisted them for its Pitch Day, it was a signal that the technology wasn’t just smart, it was strong enough for the elite.
The leadership team reads like a brain trust of science and Silicon Valley: Caitlin Shure, PhD, steering product and content with the precision of a researcher who’s studied the cultural history of brainwaves; Duy Phan, the Apple veteran who engineered the Bluetooth backbone for AirPods and the Apple Watch; and Akshay Paul, PhD, driving hardware design that can hold its own in both the lab and the living room.
With 5,000 units in production for Q4 and preorders open at $399, NextSense is stepping into a market where 70 million Americans struggle with sleep, and most of them are desperate for more than another meditation app. The World Economic Forum named them a Technology Pioneer for 2024 for a reason, because this isn’t a gadget, it’s a gateway.
Jonathan Berent isn’t chasing the dream of quantified self. He’s building something deeper: the conscious self. And if the next decade belongs to neurotech, NextSense just positioned itself as the company wiring that future.
