China's NeuroXess raises $105M Series B as brain implant enters clinical trial
What's the deal? Chinese brain-computer interface (BCI) developer NeuroXess has raised US$96.3M (roughly $105 million) in a Series B round. SDIC Juli, Shenzhen Venture Capital Group, and Qinzhi Capital co-led, with backing from SMIC Puhua, IDG Capital, and others; existing shareholders Shanda and Zhongping CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → increased their stakes.
What's the endgame? NeuroXess is building a "fully implanted, fully wireless, fully functional" ("Three-Full") BCI system. Full implantation keeps all components, including the battery, inside the body; wireless power and data transfer let patients shower, sleep, and socialise unaffected; and one system handles motion decoding, speech decoding, and environmental control at once.
Funds will support multi-centre clinical trials, registration, mass-production construction, next-generation R&D, and integration of BCI with AI.
Why now? The system has entered a registration clinical trial that began on July 7, 2026, at Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, running across 15 Class III hospitals nationwide. It also joined the National Medical Products Administration's innovative device review program — a step toward the data required for Class III registration.
By the numbers: The round sits in the 96th percentile of Chinese health Series B deals over the past four years, across a sample of 292 rounds. State-owned capital led overall, joined by industrial investors from semiconductors, medical devices, and materials.
What could go wrong? The device remains investigational. The trial must still establish safety and functional benefit, and NeuroXess has not secured market approval. Founder and chief scientist Tao Hu estimates "hundreds or even thousands" of clinical cases are needed to build a generalisable, reproducible algorithm.
The signal: Chinese BCI companies are now "scrambled for investment quota," Tao said, a shift from when the field was a "relatively immature sci-fi concept." With the sector named a national "future industry" and provinces targeting 2030, investors are betting on clinical delivery — not proof the technology is ready for market.
Read more: eu.36kr.com
Image credit: NeuroXess
