Episode description

Balint Varkuti is the CEO of CereGate which unlocks new capabilities for existing neuromodulation technologies using software.

Top 3 Takeaways:

• "the brain is naturally wired for pattern perception for learning, and that's really what we do. We send signals that the brain very quickly can pick up."
• "You do not need to exclusively be focused mentally, consciously on interpreting these signals. Rather it becomes second nature. Our favourite analogy is saying it is like braille for the brain."

• "With hardware, you sometimes have simply the disadvantage that you are married to the time point when you started. So if you started a long time ago, you started with that technology and you have a whole regulatory documentation that's building on that. So fundamentally pivoting in hardware down the road almost becomes impossible."

0:45 Do you want to introduce yourself?

3:00 What is special about the software that hasn't already been done?

11:30 The brain is plastic and the software is changing so how does it work with these two systems fighting?

13:30 How can this approach be used to treat Parkinson symptoms such as Freezing of Gait ?"

14:15 Can you read braille?

15:30 "How fast does a patient learn to use this?"

19:00 " How can a company work with you?"

21:15 You guys have been in stealth mode for 4 years, why did it take 4 years and do you have any success stories so far?

23:45 "Do you wanna talk about the regulatory pathway and how it was how to do a software versus a hardware solution?"

27:00 How did your background in behavioral sciences shape your outlook to the company?

30:15 You didn't mention coding in your background, can you talk about starting a software company without much coding experience?

31:30 You have 25 people involved in the company but doesn't seem that you have raised much money, why such a big team?

35:15 "What does the next four years look like? What's on your horizon?"

37:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"