"Zhiran Medical" Completes Over 300 Million Yuan Series A Financing to Accelerate Clinical Transformation of Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces | Exclusive Report by 36Kr
36Kr learned that Zhiran Medical announced the completion of over 300 million yuan in Series A financing. The round was jointly led by the Zhongguancun Special Fund for Independent Innovation of the National Social Security Fund (managed by Legend Capital), Legend Capital, and IDG Capital. Existing shareholder Yuansheng Venture Capital continued to make substantial additional investments, and follow - on investors included China Life Capital, Beijing Medical and Health Industry Investment Fund, Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, as well as existing shareholders Meituan Longzhu and BV Baidu Ventures.
Since its establishment in 2022, the company's cumulative financing has approached 500 million yuan. The funds from this round will be mainly used to advance the research and development of new - generation technologies and conduct large - scale clinical trials.
Zhiran Medical was co - founded by Dr. Fang Ying and Dr. Song Qi. Dr. Fang Ying is a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Beijing Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the leader of the "New Technology Platform for Neural Recording and Regulation" under the national brain project of the Ministry of Science and Technology. She has long been engaged in research on flexible high - throughput electrodes and neural recording and regulation. Dr. Song Qi graduated from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Iowa. He is a serial entrepreneur, and was formerly the founder and CEO of a leading domestic AI medical company, leading the clinical transformation and registration work for the first Class III AI medical device certificate in China.
It is reported that the Zhiran Medical team has years of experience in the field of flexible electrodes. As early as during their cooperation with Harvard University, they developed ultra - thin high - throughput flexible electrodes applicable to animal experiments and achieved the world's first public publication of self - assembled neural tassel electrodes.
In recent years, Brain - Computer Interface (BCI) technology has attracted dual attention from policies and the industry. According to the "Ethical Guidelines for Brain - Computer Interface Research" issued by the Ministry of Science and Technology, BCI is an interdisciplinary technology that establishes an information channel between the brain and external devices to achieve direct interaction. In March 2025, the National Healthcare Security Administration for the first time established BCI technology as an independent charging item, covering various types such as invasive and non - invasive, laying the foundation for commercial clinical applications.
Among various technological routes, Zhiran Medical has focused on the invasive BCI direction since its establishment. This solution directly implants electrodes into the brain to collect high - resolution and high - information - content neural signals in situ and precisely regulate neurons. Although this approach faces technical challenges in terms of implantation surgery and long - term stability, it is considered the only way to comprehensively record and regulate neurons from single - neuron to million - level neurons at present.
Zhiran Medical's core competitiveness lies in flexible electrodes, fully implantable hardware systems, and decoding algorithms. The company's self - developed invasive high - throughput flexible electrodes have obtained patent authorizations in both China and the United States. These electrodes have ultra - high neuron collection efficiency, supporting the collection of more than one active neuron per channel on average. At the same time, they adopt a stretchable design to reduce the relative displacement between the electrodes and brain tissue after implantation, reduce immune inflammatory responses, and break through the bottleneck of unstable long - term signal collection of traditional electrodes.
Zhiran Medical's self - developed invasive ultra - thin flexible electrodes
Based on these electrodes, the company has developed a fully implantable high - throughput wireless signal collection system that supports the precise collection of neuron action potentials with up to 1024 channels. It is equipped with an implantable rechargeable battery and has passed international safety standard certifications. The supporting neural signal chip has been reduced to the size of a coin, and the system power consumption has been reduced by 75%.
In terms of algorithms, Zhiran Medical has self - developed deep neural network algorithms to improve signal quality and extract high - dimensional features, and uses adaptive networks to improve decoding accuracy and universality. The company has built its own high - precision EEG data platform, with over 20TB of animal neuron data and over 6TB of human deep - brain region data, which are used for pre - training neuron EEG models to accelerate model training speed and improve decoding performance.
To improve implantation efficiency and safety, the company has also developed a multi - degree - of - freedom implantation robot that supports micron - level positioning accuracy. It can freely select the number of implantation points, automatically avoid blood vessels, plan safe positions, and precisely control the implantation depth to achieve fast and automated electrode implantation.
In terms of industrial layout, Zhiran Medical has built a clinical - grade micro - nano processing workshop and a GMP workshop covering more than a thousand square meters in Changping, Beijing, forming a complete capability from core device research and development to product manufacturing, and achieving conditions for independent control and large - scale production of clinical - grade products. Zhiran Medical said that it will continue to rely on policy and capital support to accelerate the iteration of core technologies and clinical transformation, and promote the application of invasive BCI technology in more medical scenarios.
Recently, the global BCI industry has entered an acceleration phase. Companies such as Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk, have successively disclosed the progress of their human implantation clinical trials. Start - up technology teams are also promoting thinner and more flexible implantable electrodes into clinical use. At the technical level, the signal collection quality, long - term stability, and implantation safety of BCI systems remain the core focus of the industry. The evolution from rigid electrodes to flexible electrodes has improved the resolution and stability of neural signal collection and reduced the risk of immune responses, which is generally considered the key to promoting clinical application. In the future, invasive BCI is expected to make breakthroughs in treating spinal cord injuries, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and even depression.