CoMind One: status and timeline · The Techno Optimist

CoMind One

Give intensive-care teams continuous brain blood flow and pressure readings without drilling a probe through the skull, so more brain-injury patients can be monitored.

ProtoStage 2 of 5

Prototype validated in healthy adults; US feasibility study in patients under way; launch aimed at 2027.

Updated 30 Mar 2026Checked 11 Oct0 updates this week

Milestones

Next · Early feasibility study enrolling patients in the US

Company founded by James Dacombe2018Complete.
$102.5M raised, led by Plural20 Oct 2025Complete.
Neurophotonics papers on CoMind R1 prototype30 Mar 2026Complete.
Early feasibility study enrolling patients in the USTarget Oct 2025Current milestone.
CoMind One launch (US approval sought)Target 2027Not yet reached.

Most important updates

Upcoming

Oct 2025Early feasibility study enrolling patients in the US (next)
2027CoMind One launch (US approval sought)
2027CoMind One commercial launch target

Current obstacles

Evidence in real patientsPeer-reviewed R1 results so far are in healthy volunteers; the US study must show reliable readings in injured, moving ICU patients.
Pressure without a probeBlood flow is measured directly, but intracranial pressure is inferred; that estimate must agree with drilled-in probes to replace them.
Shrinking the opticsThe R1 prototype uses a high-power swept laser and fibre bundles; a commercial unit must be cheaper, smaller and simple to apply.

Physics limits

Light fades fast in tissueSkin, skull and brain scatter and absorb infrared light, so only a tiny fraction of photons go deep and come back; signal strength drops steeply with depth, capping how deep optics can see.
The scalp sits in the wayEvery photon that reaches the brain also passes through the scalp twice, whose blood flow changes too. Separating the two signals is never perfect, especially in thick skulls.
Safe laser power is cappedEye and skin safety limits cap how much light can be sent in, which in turn limits how many deep photons return and how noisy the reading is.

How it works

4 parts

Sensor

Adhesive patch on the forehead

A small sticker-like sensor sends in infrared laser light and collects the faint light that scatters back out of the head.

Depth

Sorting light by travel time

Photons that took longer than about 1 ns went deep enough to reach the brain; earlier ones mostly saw scalp and skull and are discarded.

Flow

Flicker reveals moving blood

Moving red blood cells make the returning light flicker. Mixing it with a reference beam boosts that flicker so flow can be read with each heartbeat.

Outputs

Flow, regulation, pressure

Software turns the pulsing flow into blood flow, how well the brain holds it steady, and an estimate of intracranial pressure.

Spec sheet

Spec	CoMind One
Laser wavelength (R1)	1064 nm^R (reported)
Photon travel time used (R1)	~1.2 ns on average^R (reported)
Timing response width (R1)	120 ps^R (reported)
Adults tested (R1 paper)	25 healthy volunteers^R (reported)
Drift over 24 h (R1)	No significant drift^R (reported)

^R reported by the company

Papers & demos

1 item

30 Mar 2026paper
CoMind R1: a time-resolved interferometric optical neuromonitoring system (Neurophotonics) (opens comind.io)Shows the prototype reads pulsing brain blood flow from light that travelled about 1.2 ns, across 25 healthy adults.

Update log

2 updates

Mon 30 Mar

Major: CoMind publishes first peer-reviewed papers on its CoMind R1 optical brain blood-flow prototypePaperResearch

Mon 20 Oct 2025

Major: CoMind raises $102.5M led by Plural for a laser-based brain monitor that avoids drilling into the skullPressFunding

About CoMind

The team behind CoMind One

CoMind

Laser brain-blood-flow monitor, ICU

CoMind, a London medtech company, is building CoMind One: a forehead sensor that uses laser light to track blood flow and pressure inside the skull, so intensive-care doctors would no longer need to drill into the skull to monitor injured brains.

Raised $102.5M in October 2025, including a $60M Series A led by Plural; aims for a CoMind One launch in 2027.
Its research prototype, CoMind R1, was described in two peer-reviewed Neurophotonics papers in March 2026.
Earlier clinical studies ran in London and Barcelona; a third, in the US, is meant to support an FDA submission.

comind.io (opens comind.io)Company profile →

Founded: 20188 yrs
Headquarters: United Kingdom
Status: Private
Valuation: private
Raised: $60M1 round
Last round: Series A ($102.5M total announced) · $60M20 Oct 2025
Works in: NeurotechNon-invasive
Coverage: 1 program · 2 updateslatest 30 Mar 2026checked 11 Oct
Lead investors: Plural
Investors: Plural (opens comind.io)LocalGlobeAngelini VenturesOctopus Ventures
People: James Dacombe (opens medtechdive.com)Founder & CEORob Cooper (opens comind.io)Chief Scientific OfficerFrank Fischer (opens comind.io)Chairman of the board

Spec

CoMind One

Laser wavelength (R1)

1064 nm^R (reported)

Photon travel time used (R1)

~1.2 ns on average^R (reported)

Timing response width (R1)

120 ps^R (reported)

Adults tested (R1 paper)

25 healthy volunteers^R (reported)

Drift over 24 h (R1)

No significant drift^R (reported)