Geographic atrophy affects roughly 5 million people worldwide, eroding vision by progressively eliminating photoreceptors. This leaves patients unable to read, recognize faces, or perform other detail-dependent tasks. New drugs have started to slow progression, but do not restore lost vision. Science’s PRIMA BCI targets that gap with a subretinal implant paired to camera glasses that project patterned light, driving stimulation and reintroducing functional visual input. 

This week, Science Corporation announced an oversubscribed $230M Series C, bringing total capital raised to roughly $490M since its 2021 founding. The company says the round will fund PRIMA’s European commercialization and the manufacturing and operational infrastructure required to scale it internationally. Science also announced an expansion of PRIMA’s clinical program into inherited retinal diseases, including Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa.

Inside the Round

Science's $230M round drew participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, IQT, and Quiet Capital, among others. According to reporting by TechCrunch, the financing values the company at roughly $1.5 billion and comes as the team grows to around 150 employees. The capital is positioned to fund commercialization infrastructure for PRIMA while expanding research, manufacturing capacity, and operations needed to support deployment.

The raise follows a sequence of milestones that have shifted PRIMA from research program to commercial candidate. In April 2024, Science acquired the retinal implant assets from the French startup Pixium Vision. The following year, results from the PRIMAvera trial were published in The New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrating restoration of functional “form vision” in patients with advanced geographic atrophy. Last June, Science submitted a CE mark application for the system. The underlying technology traces back to research by Daniel Palanker’s group at Stanford, which originally developed the retinal implant architecture.

In parallel, Science reshaped its leadership bench to support the next phase of development. In December 2025 the company appointed co-founder Alan Mardinly as Chief Scientific Officer, Frank Brodie as Medical Director for Vision and PRIMA, and Darius Shahida as Chief Strategy Officer. Shahida previously helped raise over $1 billion during his tenure at Butterfly Network, experience that is already proving highly relevant.

How Do Retinal Implants Work?

PRIMA is a subretinal photovoltaic implant paired with camera glasses that project patterned near-infrared light onto the retina. The implant converts those light patterns into electrical stimulation of surviving retinal neurons, effectively substituting for photoreceptors lost in geographic atrophy due to age-related macular degeneration. In the PRIMAvera clinical trial, 38 participants with advanced disease showed meaningful improvements in visual acuity over twelve months, with several patients able to read letters and short words using the system.

Most other therapies for geographic atrophy follow a different path. Recently approved  inhibitors drugs aim to slow degeneration by targeting the underlying inflammatory cascade, but do not restore vision once photoreceptors are lost. In inherited retinal diseases, restoration efforts are also underway through gene therapy and optogenetic approaches, some now reaching late-stage trials. More experimental work is exploring cortical vision prostheses that bypass the eye entirely, including Neuralink’s Blindsight program, which recently received FDA breakthrough designation. 

A Continued BCI Funding Trend

BCI financing is heating up as the industry heads towards commercialization. Synchron’s $200M Series D last November was framed around scaling its Stentrode platform through larger clinical and commercial operations, while Cognito announced a $105M Series C this week to fund late-stage development for its Spectris program in Alzheimer’s disease. Merge Labs shows that even the early stage now draws strong capital, with a reported $252M seed round in January backing an early-stage bet on non-invasive brain interfaces. 

Science now sits among the most heavily capitalized companies in BCIs, with roughly $490M raised to date and a reported $1.5B valuation. The company is positioning itself as more than a single program, continuing to build its Biohybrid interface work, an “Ecosystem” platform for partners, and the Vessel perfusion effort alongside its near-term commercialization push. Compared with chronic, invasive cortical implants, Science's PRIMA commercialization pathway could turn out operationally simpler, with less neurosurgical complexity and long-term follow-up burden before first revenue becomes plausible.