Unlocking artificial touch for the spatial computing age.
Afference
Neural haptics that let you feel digital worlds with your own hands.
Unless led Afference’s Series A to bring neural haptics from the lab into mainstream spatial computing and industrial workflows.
Neural haptics that let you feel digital worlds with your own hands.
Afference
Afference operates at the intersection of neuroscience, engineering, and digital environments. Built on nearly three decades of pioneering neural interface and haptics research, Afference develops wearable neural interfaces that deliver precise, finger-level haptic feedback by directly stimulating the nervous system. The Afference team is translating leading-edge science into low-power, solid-state neural haptics that make rich, lifelike touch possible across AR, VR, XR, and traditional digital devices.
IMPACT STORY
Spatial computing has a touch problem. Vision and audio systems have reached astonishing fidelity, yet most “haptics” still rely on the same crude vibration motors found in smartphones. That limitation is now a bottleneck for the next generation of high-stakes applications—from surgical robotics and remote maintenance to defense, industrial training, and truly immersive XR.
Afference’s answer is neural haptics: low-power, solid-state wearables that interface directly with peripheral nerves to generate rich, programmable sensations across the hand. Instead of pushing on the skin, Afference sends precisely tuned electrical signals to the nervous system, producing the illusion of contact at the fingertips even when nothing is physically there. The company’s flagship platform, Phantom, has already earned top industry recognition, including a CES “Best of Innovation” award in XR & Spatial Computing, for delivering finger-level feedback while keeping the user’s hands uncovered, dexterous, and fully available for real-world tasks.
By making touch a software-defined layer, Afference makes high-fidelity haptics hardware-agnostic. Rings, watches, controllers, surgical consoles, teleoperation rigs, and industrial tools can all gain tactile intelligence without compromising battery life, reliability, or industrial design. This unlocks a new dimension of interaction—tactile bandwidth—where users can feel torque, drag, texture, and contact events; remote specialists can “reach into” complex systems; and XR platforms can add true touch without redesigning their hardware.
Team
Led by co-founders Dustin Tyler and Jacob Segil, Afference is built on nearly 30 years of pioneering work in neural interfaces and haptic feedback.
A professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, co-founder Dustin Tyler is internationally recognized for restoring touch to amputees through implanted and surface nerve interfaces and for advancing “NeuroReality™” concepts that use technology to make human experience richer.
Co-founder and CEO, Jacob Segil is a successful serial entrepreneur and research professor in engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He uses neural interfaces, biomechatronic devices, and machine learning to blur the lines between human and machine by eliciting perceptions of the natural body using artificial devices.
Together, they’ve translated their body of work spanning peripheral nerve electrodes, referred sensation, and human-in-the-loop control into a practical, manufacturable platform for wearables and spatial computing devices.
Investors
We back founders who begin with first-principles physics and human factors, then design systems outward. Afference is exactly that kind of team: they start from the nervous system, not from a gadget. Our conviction in leading the Series A is simple. Spatial computing, robotics, and remote operations will all require neural-grade haptics as a baseline capability. The winning platform will be hardware-independent, able to ride on rings, watches, controllers, and industrial tools rather than tied to any single OEM. And as neural engineering moves from the clinic into industry, the teams with true translational experience will define the field. If we’re right, Afference becomes the tactile layer of the spatial computing stack—licensing neural haptics across devices and giving operators something digital systems have never reliably delivered: real touch.
Takeaways
Neural haptics is becoming foundational to the next generation of human–machine systems. Afference delivers:
+ Higher precision & lower cognitive load than traditional vibration-based haptics
+ Order-of-magnitude richer sensations with lower power and cleaner form factors
+ Standardizable tactile experiences deployable across entire device families
+ Safer, more intuitive control for robotics, defense, industrial operations, and spatial computing
In a world where humans increasingly steer high-stakes digital systems, Afference provides the tactile intelligence those systems have been missing.
