TL;DR Thomas Reardon, who created Internet Explorer and sold neural interface startup CTRL-labs to Meta for up to $1 billion, is raising approximately $500 million for Flourish at a $2.5 billion valuation. The startup uses connectomics and neuroscience to design AI architectures that are radically more energy-efficient, targeting the architectural layer above silicon rather than building new chips. Lux Capital and GV, who backed CTRL-labs, are expected to lead the round. Thomas Reardon has a pattern. In 1994, he created the project that became Internet Explorer, the browser that turned Microsoft from a software company into an internet company and triggered the most consequential antitrust case in technology history. In 2015, he co-founded CTRL-labs, a neural interface startup that built a wristband capable of translating electrical signals from the brain into computer commands, and sold it to Meta for somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion.…