Startups
Aleph Neuro
San Francisco, California
Aleph Neuro is a San Francisco research company developing ultrasound-based brain interfaces, led by cofounders Marley Xiong (CEO), Raffi Hotter and Lev Chizhov. Its long-term aim is richer communication through non-invasive neural interfaces. Research: In June 2026 the company reported high-resolution 3D imaging of human brain vasculature through an intact skull using injected microbubble contrast and released its processing pipeline. Contrast-free neurovascular imaging and general-purpose neural decoding remain research goals. In July 2026 it reported a tongue-ultrasound silent-speech prototype with 15.6% word error rate on its internal cross-speaker validation set after training on about 50 hours of data. This prototype reads tongue motion; it is not demonstrated thought decoding. Hardware miniaturization, coupling material and accent generalization remain limitations. Butterfly Network supplies an ultrasound platform through its Embedded licensing/co-development program. Research collaborators named on Aleph posts include Vadims Casecnikovs and Gimran Abdullin (silent speech), and Albert Yan-Huang, Thomas Ribeiro and Aayush Gupta (olfactory stimulation); these credits alone do not establish employee status. Funding research (September 21, 2026): No confirmed Aleph Neuro equity investors, round dates or amounts were found. Moth Fund lists Alegria Neurotech, founded by Hotter and Xiong, in its MF I portfolio; the relationship between that entity and Aleph remains unverified. Magnificent Grants previously supported Xiong and Hotter's neural-imagery research through a fellowship. Neither that founder-level grant nor Butterfly's commercial partnership is recorded as an Aleph equity investment.
Team
Gimran AbdullinResearch collaborator — silent speech |
 Lev ChizhovCo-founder |
 Marley XiongCo-founder and CEO |
 Raffi HotterCo-founder |
Vadims CasecnikovsResearch collaborator — silent speech |
Investments
No investment rounds on record yet.