9.4 billion in funds, two technological routes, five cities: Understanding the capital landscape of brain-computer interfaces
In the first four months of 2026, the total financing in the brain-computer interface (BCI) track has already exceeded that of the entire year of 2025. This is not a prediction but an established reality.
According to data from IT Juzi, between 2013 and May 2026, 43 companies in the Chinese BCI field completed 104 financing events, with a total financing amount of 9.37 billion yuan.
Behind this set of data lies a clear timeline: a long dormant period from 2013 to 2020, a difficult climbing period from 2021 to 2023, a brief trough in 2024, and an explosive growth period from 2025 to 2026. The BCI is accelerating from the "concept hype period" into the "commercial verification period."
Annual Trend: A Decade's Journey from Dormancy to Explosion
Looking back at the financing history of the Chinese BCI, 2013 was a symbolic starting point. In that year, Zhejiang Nurotron Biotechnology Co., Ltd. completed an angel round of financing of 130 million yuan, becoming one of the earliest BCI companies in China to receive large-scale financing. This Hangzhou-based company, founded in 2006, focuses on the field of neural prosthetics such as cochlear implants. Its early financing was of milestone significance - it proved that the capital market was willing to pay for "science-fiction level" technologies.
However, in the following six years (2014 - 2019), the industry fell into a long period of silence. Except for a small peak in 2019 (9 events/410 million yuan), the number of financing events in other years did not exceed 3, and the financing amounts mostly remained at the tens of millions of yuan level. During this period, the entire industry was waiting for technological maturity, clinical data, and regulatory breakthroughs.
2020 was a turning point. Under the impact of the pandemic, the healthcare track became a haven for capital. As the core technology of "the next generation of human-computer interaction," BCI began to receive more attention. In 2021, the number of financing events in the industry reached 6, with an amount of nearly 500 million yuan, marking the arrival of the first wave of capital enthusiasm.
2022 was the eve of the real explosion. There were 13 financing events with a total amount of 1.355 billion yuan. Leading companies such as BrainCo, BrainTech, and Aoyi Technology completed multiple rounds of financing intensively. In this year, Neuralink completed a Series C financing of $283 million (about 1.97 billion yuan at that time), injecting a shot in the arm into the global BCI track.
However, the industry experienced a brief pain in 2023 - 2024. In 2023, the number of events remained at 10, but the amount dropped sharply to 374 million yuan; in 2024, it hit rock bottom, with only 8 events and 222 million yuan, and most of the financing amounts were not disclosed. The "capital winter" in the primary market pushed many BCI companies into a valuation adjustment period.
In 2025, the industry rebounded in a V-shape. There were 25 events and 1.756 billion yuan - this figure almost matched the historical high in 2022. More importantly, the financing in this year showed a trend of "both quantity and price increasing": large-scale financing occurred frequently, with a single B+ round exceeding 2 billion yuan and a single strategic investment reaching 500 million yuan.
As of May 2026, there have been 24 events, and the total financing amount has soared to 4.414 billion yuan - exceeding the total amount of the entire year of 2025 in just four months. According to this trend, the total financing amount in 2026 is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan, creating a historical record.
The underlying logic of this round of explosion is that the technology maturity curve has passed the "trough of disillusionment." The invasive BCI achieved multiple milestone clinical breakthroughs from 2024 to 2025 - Neuralink's first human subject achieved mind control of a computer, and the wireless minimally invasive BCI of a Tsinghua University team helped paralyzed patients recover motor ability. These cases greatly boosted the confidence of capital.
Who's Attracting Capital: Financing Map of Leading Companies
In this capital feast, which companies are at the center of the stage?
BrainCo is the undisputed "king of financing." This company, founded in Hangzhou in 2015, completed 6 rounds of financing in ten years, with a cumulative financing amount of up to 2.536 billion yuan. Its investors' lineup is luxurious: IDG Capital, Walden International, TAL Education Group, Lens Technology, etc. Its core competitiveness lies in the consumer-grade application of non-invasive BCI technology - products such as intelligent bionic hands and EEG training devices have entered the commercialization stage. The B+ round of financing in 2026 was as high as 2 billion yuan, the largest single financing in the Chinese BCI field ever.
Jieti Medical is a rising new force in recent years. This Shanghai-based company, founded in 2021, completed 5 rounds of financing in just four years, with a cumulative financing of 1.21 billion yuan. Its investors include top institutions such as Qiming Venture Partners, Tencent Investment, Alibaba Capital, OrbiMed, Source Code Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures, etc. The strategic investment in 2026 was as high as 500 million yuan. Jieti Medical focuses on the R & D of invasive BCI, and its technical route is closer to that of Neuralink, being regarded as a strong competitor to the "Chinese version of Neuralink."
BrainTech is one of the earliest companies in China to layout the BCI. It was founded in 2011, completed 6 rounds of financing with a total of 781 million yuan, mainly focusing on the non-invasive technical route, and its products cover the fields of scientific research equipment and medical rehabilitation.
Shuli Innovation, Aoyi Technology, and Zhiran Medical form the second echelon. Shuli Innovation has a cumulative financing of 700 million yuan. Aoyi Technology completed 8 rounds of financing (the most financing rounds) with a cumulative amount of 663 million yuan, and Zhiran Medical has a cumulative amount of 622 million yuan. These three companies have their own characteristics in the fields of neural regulation, intelligent prosthetics, and diagnosis and treatment of heart and brain diseases respectively.
NeuroXess, Juxin Medical, Yinghe Brain Science, and Mingshi BCI represent the new forces. Relying on the technological accumulation of the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, NeuroXess has a cumulative financing of 427 million yuan. Juxin Medical completed a Series C financing of 200 million yuan in 2026, with a cumulative amount of 330 million yuan. Mingshi BCI received 150 million yuan in its angel round in 2026, invested by institutions such as Honghui Capital, Zhongke Chuangxing, and Delian Capital, indicating that capital has a high expectation for its invasive technical route.
From the distribution of financing rounds, the industry characteristics can be clearly seen: Early-stage investment dominates absolutely. The angel round (36 events/815 million yuan), Pre-A round (15 events/414 million yuan), and seed round (5 events/49 million yuan) totaled 56 events, accounting for 53% of the total number of domestic events. This means that more than half of the financing events are still in the start-up stage, and the industry as a whole is still in the early layout stage.
But another set of data is also worthy of attention: Large-scale financing is highly concentrated in the later rounds. There were 7 events in the B+ round, attracting 2.72 billion yuan (accounting for 29%), 6 events/1.021 billion yuan in the B round (accounting for 11%), and 4 events/950 million yuan in the C round (accounting for 10%). This shows that once a company crosses the "valley of death" and enters the commercial verification stage, the intensity of capital will increase sharply.
Controversy over Technical Routes: Invasive vs. Non-invasive
The most core technical divergence in the BCI field lies in the controversy between "invasive" and "non-invasive."
Non-invasive BCI collects EEG signals through electrodes on the scalp surface without surgical implantation. Its technical threshold is relatively low, and the commercialization path is shorter, but the signal collection accuracy is limited, and the noise interference is large. Invasive BCI, on the other hand, needs to implant a microelectrode array in the brain through surgery to directly collect the electrical signals of neurons, which can obtain higher-resolution brain activity data, but faces challenges such as surgical risks, long-term safety, and ethical review.
From the domestic data, the non-invasive/other routes have an advantage in the number of financing events: 87 events and 7.411 billion yuan, accounting for 78.8% of the total amount. The reason behind this proportion is that as the leading non-invasive company, BrainCo's single B+ round of financing of 2 billion yuan significantly increased the total financing amount of the non-invasive camp.
However, if we exclude the special case of BrainCo, the "capital attraction efficiency" of the invasive route is significantly higher. The invasive camp had 18 events with a financing of 1.998 billion yuan, with an average single financing of 111 million yuan; the non-invasive camp (about 67 events after excluding BrainCo) had a financing of about 5.4 billion yuan, with an average single financing of about 81 million yuan. More importantly, the single financing in the invasive camp shows an obvious upward trend - from 2025 to 2026, large-scale financings such as Jieti Medical's 500 million yuan strategic investment, Mingshi BCI's 150 million yuan angel round, and Juxin Medical's 200 million yuan Series C financing almost all came from the invasive camp.
Behind this trend is a profound transformation of the technical logic. In the past three years, the breakthrough of the wireless minimally invasive BCI technology has greatly reduced the clinical risks of the invasive approach. The clinical data released by institutions such as the team of Professor Hong Bo from Tsinghua University and Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University show that the new generation of invasive BCI can achieve a decoding accuracy of more than 90% for motor intentions, and the postoperative recovery period of patients has been significantly shortened. The improvement of technological maturity is eliminating the concerns of capital about the "safety risks" of the invasive approach.
Looking forward to the future, the two technical routes will coexist for a long time but with different application scenarios: Non-invasive is more suitable for consumer-grade applications (attention training, sleep monitoring, VR/AR interaction) and lightweight medical scenarios (cognitive rehabilitation, auxiliary treatment for anxiety and depression); Invasive focuses on high-end medical scenarios (reconstruction of motor function for paralyzed patients, communication for ALS patients, precise treatment of epilepsy).
Regional Pattern: A Tale of Three Cities - Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen
The regional distribution of the BCI industry reflects the geographical map of China's technological innovation.
Shanghai: First in the number of events and companies, with the most solid ecosystem
There are 11 companies and 26 events, with 17 events concentrated in Pudong New Area, and Zhangjiang is the absolute core. Jieti Medical (1.21 billion yuan) and Aoyi Technology (663 million yuan) account for half of the total. The characteristic of Shanghai is its dispersion and solidity - no single company accounts for too high a proportion, and multiple teams are deeply involved in different technical routes.
Shanghai's advantages lie in: the gathering of top medical institutions (Huashan Hospital, Ruijin Hospital, etc. have all carried out BCI clinical research), strong scientific research strength in universities (Fudan University, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), and a high degree of internationalization (convenient for introducing overseas talents and technologies). More importantly, Shanghai's financing ecosystem is more balanced - multiple companies such as Jieti Medical, BrainTech, Shuli Innovation, and NeuroXess have their own characteristics, rather than relying on a single company to support the city's data.
Hangzhou: First in amount but highly dependent on one company
18 events/2.9 billion yuan seems quite strong. But this is almost a story of "one person's success benefiting many." BrainCo alone contributed 2.536 billion yuan, accounting for 87% of Hangzhou's total. The existence of BrainCo makes Hangzhou occupy a non - negligible position in the BCI field, but the richness and dispersion of its industrial ecosystem still need to be improved.
Beijing: A relatively high number but a low amount, lacking large - scale financing
There are 16 events/956 million yuan, with 12 events in Haidian and 4 events in Chaoyang. Zhiran Medical contributed the most with 622 million yuan, and the other 5 companies all have less than 100 million yuan. The activity of early - stage investment institutions such as Zhongke Chuangxing and Miracle Plus is an important driving force. Beijing's characteristic lies in scientific research transformation - the achievement transformation projects of top scientific research institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Peking University are important sources of Beijing's BCI companies.
Shenzhen: Driven by Shuli Innovation and Juxin Medical
Shenzhen ranks third with 15 events and 1.341 billion yuan. Shuli Innovation (700 million yuan) and Juxin Medical (330 million yuan) together contribute more than 77%. Shenzhen's advantage lies in its hardware manufacturing capabilities and industrial chain support - for the hardware links involved in BCI, such as sensors, chips, and flexible printed circuit boards, Shenzhen has a mature supply chain system. However, Shenzhen's BCI companies are generally in the early stage, lacking super - stars like BrainCo and Jieti Medical.
Suzhou and Changzhou are hidden players
There are 8 events/342 million yuan in Suzhou and 6 events/781 million yuan in Changzhou (the Changzhou headquarters of BrainTech contributes a large share). The accumulation of the southern Jiangsu region in the field of high - end medical devices provides an industrial foundation for BCI.
From the provincial perspective, Zhejiang (2.9 billion yuan), Shanghai (2.415 billion yuan), Guangdong (1.492 billion yuan), Jiangsu (1.283 billion yuan), and Beijing (956 million yuan) account for more than 96% of the total domestic financing amount. The regional agglomeration effect of the BCI industry is extremely significant, and capital layout is highly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area.
It is worth noting that although there are few financing events in Shaanxi and Sichuan, they represent the spark in the inland areas. There are 4 events/143 million yuan in Shaanxi and 2 events/151 million yuan in Sichuan. These financing cases from the western region indicate that the BCI boom is spreading to a wider area.
Capital Camps: Who's Betting on BCI
Who are the "super players" in the BCI track?
In terms of investment frequency, Sequoia China ranks first with 6 investments, being the most active leading institution in BCI investment. Sequoia China's layout covers multiple rounds and various technical routes, showing its long - term optimism and systematic research on this track.
Baidu Ventures follows closely with 5 investments, which is closely related to its AI strategy - BCI is regarded by Baidu as the "next - generation AI interaction entrance" and forms synergy with large - model products such as Wenxin Yiyan.
CDH Investments, Lingyi Fund, Lilly Asia Ventures, Kairong Capital, and Rongtuo Capital are tied for the third echelon with 4 investments each. As the strategic investment department of an international pharmaceutical company, Lilly Asia Ventures' logic in laying out BCI is that BCI has disruptive potential in the field of neurological disease treatment, which is highly consistent with Lilly's neuroscience pipeline.
Zhongke Chuangxing, OrbiMed, IDG Capital, Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Meituan Longzhu, and Miracle Plus form the fifth echelon with