Shanghai Brain-Computer Interface Startups Secure New Funding

StairMed and Futong Huizhi, two Shanghai-based medical technology startups have secured new funding as investors continue to bet on China's fast-growing brain-computer interface (BCI) sector.

StairMed, a developer of implantable BCI technologies, said it raised 500 million yuan (US$72.5 million) in a strategic financing round led by Alibaba, with participation from SDIC Unity Capital and existing investors including Tencent, Qiming Venture Partners and Lilly Asia Ventures.

Founded in 2021 in Shanghai's Pudong district, StairMed focuses on minimally invasive implantable BCI systems designed to help patients with movement disorders and neurological diseases.

The company has developed ultra-flexible electrodes about one-hundredth the thickness of a human hair and a wireless brain implant it says is the world's smallest. StairMed completed China's first prospective clinical trial of an invasive BCI in 2025.

Earlier this year it also conducted a clinical implantation of a 256-channel high-throughput wireless BCI system, marking what the company said was the country's first trial of such a device.

Separately, Shanghai Futong Huizhi Medical Technology said it secured seed funding and unveiled China's first ultrasound-based BCI device, designed for precise non-invasive neural modulation.