What’s funding like in the brain-computer interface market right now?

All funding deals in the brain-computer interface market over the last 24 months

Below is the table listing all the deals. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

If you want a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report on neurotech funding, valuations and who's ahead.

Is the brain-computer interface funding market actually healthier now?

The brain-computer interface funding market is healthier today, mainly because far more companies can raise money and the market depends much less on one giant financing.

We counted 51 deals in the latest 12 months, versus 15 in the previous period. Unique funded companies jumped from 15 to 41. Quantifiable capital increased from at least $1.10 billion to at least $1.67 billion, even though current deal-size disclosure is much worse: only 31 of the 51 recent deals have a usable numeric amount, compared with 13 of 15 previously.

The typical disclosed round did get smaller. The median fell from $41.8 million to $21.8 million. In another market, that could look worrying. Here, it happened while the number of funded companies nearly tripled, 16 companies received a first financing, ten companies raised more than once, and every monthly interval contained at least one transaction.

So the healthier part of today's BCI market is its depth below the headline rounds.

Metric	Current L12M	Previous L12M	Change
Deals	51	15	+240%
Unique funded companies	41	15	+173%
Quantifiable capital	≥$1.674B	≥$1.098B	+52%
Median disclosed round	$21.8M	$41.8M	-48%
First financings	16	5	+220%
Companies raising more than once	10	0	+10
Zero-deal monthly intervals	0	4	-4
Early-stage deal share	70.6%	60.0%	+10.6 pp

Would BCI funding still look stronger without the biggest rounds?

Yes. Brain-computer interface funding looks even stronger once we remove the biggest rounds.

Quantifiable capital rose 52% overall. But if we exclude rounds above $50 million, funding rises from $245.8 million to $496.1 million, up 102%. Excluding rounds above $100 million gives almost the same result: $345.8 million became $685.6 million, up 98%.

Last year's comparison period was distorted by Neuralink's $650 million Series E. That one financing represented 59% of all quantified capital. Today, the largest disclosed round is BrainCo's $286 million financing, representing about 17%. With Neuralink's $650 million round no longer dominating, we follow where the biggest rounds are going in our neurotech market report.

BrainCo, Merge Labs and Precision Neuroscience still raised $286 million, $252 million and $250 million respectively, so large checks clearly remain available. The difference is that there is now much more funding underneath them.

As seen above, the 52% headline increase actually understates the improvement in the middle of the market.

Are more BCI companies actually getting funded now?

Yes. Brain-computer interface funding is reaching many more companies now, rather than simply giving bigger checks to an established group.

We found 41 unique funded companies in the current period, compared with 15 previously. Deal count increased even faster because ten companies managed to raise more than once.

That creates a much deeper financing market. Recent activity ranges from large established names such as Synchron and Precision Neuroscience to very young companies such as Gestala, Xinsheng Shijie, Full-Brain Core Technology and UCANACT.

The latest period also had no empty monthly interval. A year earlier, four of the 12 intervals had no BCI deal at all. Funding has become much more continuous instead of arriving in occasional bursts.

Are investors still funding brand-new BCI startups?

Yes. New BCI startups are getting funded much more often today, and investors are backing them earlier in their lives.

We counted 16 first financings in the latest period, versus only five previously. Their share of all deals stayed around one-third because follow-on activity grew at roughly the same time, but the absolute increase is large.

These companies are also younger. The median first-financing company was around nine months old, compared with roughly 1.5 years in the previous period.

Xinsheng Shijie, for example, was established in early 2026 before raising nearly RMB100 million a few months later. Gestala went from a newly created ultrasound-BCI company to a $21.6 million first financing very quickly. Full-Brain Core Technology was financed around the time of its formation as a new spin-out.

We are therefore seeing real company creation rather than only additional capital flowing to names that were already funded.

New vs. existing companies	Current L12M	Previous L12M
First financings	16	5
First financings as share of deals	31.4%	33.3%
Quantified first-financing capital	≥$343.5M	$168.4M
Median disclosed first financing	$13.8M	$33.5M
Median age at first financing	0.75 years	1.52 years
Follow-on financings	31	10
Quantified follow-on capital	≥$1.270B	$929.5M
Median disclosed follow-on	$38.7M	$41.8M

Why are BCI funding rounds smaller now?

BCI rounds are smaller at the median because the market has built a much bigger $5 million-to-$50 million layer.

The median disclosed financing dropped from $41.8 million to $21.8 million, and the average fell from $84.4 million to $54.0 million. The composition explains most of that change.

About 68% of currently quantifiable rounds fall between $5 million and $50 million, compared with roughly 31% previously. We see this middle tier in NextSense's $16 million Series A, Gestala's initial $21.6 million round, BCI-Sonics' roughly $28 million financing and Neurable's $35 million Series A.

At the same time, $100 million-plus deals became a smaller share of disclosed transactions. Investors have not stopped funding large BCI companies; Synchron, Precision Neuroscience, BrainCo and Merge Labs make that obvious. There are simply many more companies raising meaningful but non-megaround amounts.

Disclosed round size	Current share	Previous share	Change
Under $5M	9.7%	30.8%	-21.1 pp
$5M–<$20M	32.3%	7.7%	+24.6 pp
$20M–<$50M	35.5%	23.1%	+12.4 pp
$50M–<$100M	9.7%	15.4%	-5.7 pp
$100M+	12.9%	23.1%	-10.2 pp
>$50M share of all deals	13.7%	20.0%	-6.3 pp
>$100M share of all deals	7.8%	13.3%	-5.5 pp

Is BCI funding still dominated by Neuralink-sized deals?

No. BCI funding is much less dependent on a single giant company these days.

The largest deal now represents 17.1% of quantified capital. A year earlier, Neuralink alone represented 59.2%. The top three fell from 77.6% of capital to 47.1%, while the top five fell from 86.7% to 63.4%.

There are still several very large financings. BrainCo raised $286 million, Merge Labs $252 million, Precision Neuroscience $250 million and Synchron $200 million. What has changed is the distribution: those big checks are spread across different companies and different BCI architectures. Big checks now land at different companies, so we compare who is ahead, and who is falling behind, in our report on neurotech.

That makes current funding much harder to dismiss as the result of one exceptional transaction.

Are BCI investors taking more early-stage risk now?

Yes. BCI investors are putting noticeably more money and attention into early-stage companies now.

Seed rounds account for 60.8% of current deals, up from 40%. Seed plus Series A represent 70.6% of all financings, compared with 60% previously. Later-stage deals fell from 26.7% to 15.7%.

The clearest evidence comes from the number of young Chinese companies financed around invasive interfaces, neural chips, EEG and ultrasound. Gestala, BCI-Sonics, Mindtrix, Active Technology and Xinsheng Shijie are part of a much larger early-stage cohort than we saw one year earlier.

Merge Labs is a special case. Its $252 million seed round is much too large to treat as a normal early-stage financing. Even without using that deal to characterize the typical seed market, the number of younger funded companies has clearly increased.

Which BCI technologies are getting hotter right now?

EEG and ultrasound-related BCI companies have gained the most convincing momentum because both categories added companies and attracted much more capital.

EEG went from three deals to 13. Its share of quantified capital rose from 3.1% to 23.5%. BrainCo accounts for a large part of the dollar increase, but the activity is much broader: Neurable, NextSense, NeuroDance, PengNao, LIFESCAPES and several newer Chinese companies also raised money.

Optical and ultrasound BCIs went from two financings to eight, while their capital share increased from 10.7% to 23.2%. Merge Labs is the largest deal in that group, but Gestala, BCI-Sonics, Sisheng Technology and CereSonix make the category much harder to describe as a one-company phenomenon.

Interface hardware is also getting more attention. We counted five current deals versus one previously, although most of those financings have undisclosed amounts, so the deal count tells us more than the capital total.

Implantable cortical BCIs remain the single largest group by number of deals. Their apparent collapse in capital share is mostly a comparison effect from Neuralink's $650 million round in the previous period.

BCI technology	Current deals	Previous deals	Current capital share	Previous capital share
Implantable cortical	16	5	22.8%	71.9%
EEG	13	3	23.5%	3.1%
Optical & ultrasound	8	2	23.2%	10.7%
Surface/minimally invasive	6	4	16.0%	14.2%
Interface hardware	5	1	≥2.5%	0.1%
Decoding software	2	0	≥0.1%	-
Endovascular	1	0	12.0%	-

Are ultrasound BCIs becoming a real funding category?

Yes. Ultrasound BCI funding has moved beyond a couple of isolated experiments and now includes several independently financed companies.

Gestala is the easiest example to follow. It raised about $21.6 million and then roughly $62 million only a few months later. By mid-year, the company had also opened its Shanghai headquarters and announced what it describes as an ultrasound BCI super-factory.

BCI-Sonics followed another rapid path, moving from an angel-series financing to an approximately $28 million Pre-A. Sisheng Technology completed another financing during the period, while CereSonix entered the market with a seed round. Merge Labs adds a very large international financing to the same broader non-invasive interface theme.

Chinese policy is also unusually specific here. The seven-agency BCI implementation plan published in 2025 explicitly includes ultrasonic approaches alongside electrical, magnetic, optical and chemical sensing. It also calls for more financial support, industrial clusters and faster commercialization of BCI technologies.

We should not claim that government policy directly produced these rounds. The more useful conclusion is that private financing and national technology priorities are currently moving in the same direction.

Has China become the center of BCI funding?

China is currently the center of BCI deal formation, while North America still produces much larger checks per company.

Chinese companies accounted for 38 of the 51 current deals, compared with six of 15 previously. Quantified Chinese capital rose from about $121 million to roughly $833 million. Chinese companies in most current deals shift the funding map; we follow who is getting funded, and by whom, in our neurotech funding report.

That expansion is spread across BrainCo, StairMed, Mindtrix, Gestala, bciflex Medical, BCI-Sonics, Active Technology, Xinsheng Shijie, SensingX and many smaller companies. China is building depth across implants, EEG, neural-interface chips, brain-spinal interfaces and ultrasound rather than concentrating activity in one technology.

North America now accounts for only 17.6% of deals but almost half of quantified funding. Merge Labs, Precision Neuroscience and Synchron alone raised $702 million between them.

So the geography has split in a fairly clear way: China leads the number of companies being financed, while North America remains extremely strong at the large-round end of the market.

Why is China producing so many BCI companies now?

China's BCI startup wave is happening alongside a very deliberate push to build the technology, regulatory system and industrial supply chain around brain-computer interfaces.

The government's multi-agency implementation plan covers neural electrodes, dedicated chips, decoding software, implantable devices, non-invasive consumer products and newer modalities such as ultrasound. It targets an initial BCI technology, industry and standards framework by 2027 and explicitly encourages major funds and other financial channels to invest more heavily.

Medical-device policy has moved in the same direction. China's drug and medical-device regulator has also highlighted brain-computer interfaces when discussing faster support and regulatory guidance for innovative high-end medical devices.

The mix of funded startups looks remarkably similar to that policy agenda. Recent rounds span chips at SensingX, implantable systems at StairMed and bciflex Medical, ultrasound at Gestala and BCI-Sonics, EEG products, flexible electrodes and decoding software.

The policy environment does not explain every deal, but it helps explain why such a wide BCI supply chain is being financed in China at the same time.

Are the same BCI startups raising again unusually fast?

Yes. Several BCI companies are coming back to investors within months, although we cannot prove that fundraising has become faster than it was one year earlier.

Among the 17 current follow-on financings where we could reconstruct a previous round from our research, the median gap was six months. Fifteen of those 17 companies raised again within one year.

Gestala went from about $21.6 million to roughly $62 million within months. Mindtrix moved from approximately $21.8 million of cumulative angel financing to a roughly $49 million Pre-A. BCI-Sonics also returned quickly for a larger Pre-A.

BrainCo shows the most extreme jump, with a $20 million financing followed only a few months later by a $286 million transaction.

The previous 12-month period does not give us enough earlier-round history to calculate the same metric properly. So we can say that rapid repeat fundraising is common today, but a clean year-on-year acceleration claim would go beyond what we can establish.

Are successful BCI startups getting much bigger second checks?

Some BCI startups are stepping up very quickly, but the sample is still too small to call this a market-wide pattern.

Eight current follow-ons have usable numeric amounts for both the current and previous financing. Their median step-up is 2.12 times, and four of the eight raised more than twice their previous amount. Four of eight startups raised more than double their last round, and we ask who the likely future winners are in our neurotech funding report.

BrainCo heavily distorts the average because its sequence went from $20 million to $286 million. Gestala's increase from roughly $21.6 million to $62 million is more representative of what a strong follow-on can look like in the current market.

We can confidently say that investors are willing to scale their exposure quickly when a BCI company gets traction. For now, we cannot say that every successful BCI startup should expect a two-times or three-times larger next round.

Are BCI investors funding younger companies than before?

Yes. BCI investors are entering much earlier around new companies, while established follow-on companies are actually a little older.

The median age at first financing fell from about 1.5 years to nine months. Among current Seed companies, median age is only around 1.1 years.

Follow-on companies show the opposite pattern. Their median age moved from roughly 4.3 years to 4.8 years.

That leaves the current market with two very different types of financing happening at once. Investors are willing to fund newly formed technical teams, but the largest pools of capital still go to companies that have already spent years building devices, clinical programs and engineering infrastructure.

This helps explain why a market can have many young Seed companies and still produce $200 million-plus rounds for Synchron and Precision Neuroscience.

Are more investors entering the BCI market?

Yes. The BCI investor base is much wider now, and it does not look controlled by a small club of repeat funds.

We identified 46 unique disclosed investors in the latest period, compared with 17 previously. Investor-disclosure coverage barely changed, so the jump cannot be explained simply by better reporting. Going from 17 to 46 disclosed investors widens the field; we look at which investors are making the biggest bets in our neurotech market report.

Only three disclosed investors appeared more than once: Delian Capital, Matrix Partners China and HongShan. That is a surprisingly small amount of repetition for a market with 51 deals.

The names also come from very different worlds. Traditional venture funds, life-sciences investors, university-linked funds, medical-device companies, technology companies and strategic corporate investors are all showing up.

Rather than investors collectively crowding into two or three obvious winners, funding currently looks much more distributed across investor types and technical approaches.

Are corporate investors becoming more important in BCI?

Yes. Strategic investors are taking a bigger role in BCI, especially where the technology connects to AI, rehabilitation, medical devices or consumer applications.

Strategic participation increased from 6.7% of deals to 11.8%. The more interesting change is who is participating and why.

OpenAI joined Merge Labs' seed round and said directly that it sees brain-computer interfaces as an important new computing interface. The companies are also collaborating on scientific foundation models and other tools for BCI research.

Elsewhere, Fourier Intelligence invested in ultrasound-BCI company Gestala, medical-device manufacturer Well Lead Medical backed Intellizon, and Sumitomo Life Insurance and Paramount Bed participated in LIFESCAPES. BrainCo also attracted strategic capital from companies outside traditional venture investing.

These deals suggest that BCI is increasingly being viewed as something that could plug into existing commercial systems, rather than only as a long-horizon neuroscience research bet.

Is AI becoming a real part of the BCI investment story?

Yes. AI is now visibly part of the BCI funding story, especially around decoding and new human-computer interfaces.

OpenAI's investment in Merge Labs is the clearest example because OpenAI explicitly framed BCI as a new way for people to interact with computing and AI. The planned collaboration includes scientific foundation models and tools intended to speed BCI research.

We also found companies being funded around neural foundation models and AI-heavy decoding. Omni-Intelligence is building EEG foundation models designed to convert neural activity into states, intentions and AI inputs. BCI-Sonics combines focused ultrasound with AI neural decoding, while Sisheng Technology is developing another AI-driven ultrasound interface.

AI is only one part of today's BCI market. Precision Neuroscience, Synchron, Axoft and many Chinese implant companies are still being financed around clinical hardware, electrodes and device engineering. But AI has clearly widened the number of ways investors can imagine BCIs becoming useful.

Has BCI funding moved beyond invasive brain implants?

Yes. Today's BCI funding market covers a much wider technology stack than implanted cortical interfaces alone.

Implantable cortical BCIs remain the largest group by deal count, with 16 financings, but funding now reaches EEG wearables, ultrasound systems, surface interfaces, endovascular devices, dedicated chips and decoding software.

Synchron's Stentrode uses the vascular system rather than open-brain implantation. Precision Neuroscience places a thin array on the cortical surface. Neurable puts EEG sensors into everyday head-worn devices. Gestala and BCI-Sonics are pursuing focused ultrasound. SensingX is building dedicated neural-interface chips.

This breadth is increasingly important because some of the biggest commercial opportunities may eventually sit outside the implant itself. Chips, decoding software, rehabilitation systems, AI tools and manufacturing can all become valuable layers around the core interface.

Are BCI startups finally raising money to scale, or are they still mostly doing R&D?

BCI funding currently supports both experimental work and real scaling, but we do not have enough consistent public disclosure to calculate a clean market-wide shift from R&D to commercialization.

Some recent deals are clearly moving beyond basic research. Axoft said its $55 million Series A would help advance clinical trials globally. SensingX said its latest financing would support next-generation BCI chips, packaging, reliability testing, product iteration and scaled delivery. Gestala paired its large follow-on financing with new headquarters and manufacturing infrastructure. Money going to reliability testing and scaled delivery shows how hard the next step is; we work through the biggest unsolved problems in our report on neurotech.

Large established companies are also further along the development curve. Precision Neuroscience is financing a clinical-stage cortical platform, while Synchron's $200 million round is explicitly tied to advancing its endovascular BCI technology and commercialization.

At the other end, many of the Chinese Seed financings are still backing young companies working on core technology.

The market therefore looks more commercially serious than it did a year ago, but experimentation and scale-up are happening side by side.

Do BCI companies need more proof before investors will fund them now?

There is no single proof threshold in BCI funding today; investors are funding very young technical teams and much more validated clinical companies at the same time.

The current first-financing data makes it hard to argue that every startup now needs years of validation. The median first-funded company is less than a year old, and several new Chinese spin-outs raised meaningful rounds shortly after formation.

Larger checks tell a different story. Precision Neuroscience, Synchron and Axoft have clinical programs, while SensingX's own description of its latest financing talks about reliability, packaging and scaled delivery rather than proving the basic idea from scratch.

The funding bar changes with check size. Early technical promise can still unlock Seed capital, while larger rounds are increasingly attached to clinical progress, industrialization or clearer paths toward real deployment.

We cannot quantify that shift precisely because milestone disclosure is too inconsistent across the full dataset. Better to keep that limitation visible than invent a universal investor checklist.

What really changed in brain-computer interface funding over the last 12 months?

The biggest change in brain-computer interface funding is that the market now has much more depth. More companies, more first financings, more repeat rounds and more investors are active at the same time.

The second major change is the disappearance of extreme single-deal dependency. As pointed out above, Neuralink represented 59% of quantified funding in the previous period; no current company comes close to controlling the market to that degree.

A real middle layer has also formed. The typical disclosed round is smaller, but $5 million-to-$50 million financings are much more common. That is a healthier shape for an emerging technology ecosystem than a year dominated by one $650 million transaction.

China is the largest structural change geographically. It now produces most BCI deals in our dataset and is financing companies across implants, EEG, chips, software and ultrasound. North America remains much stronger at the very large-round end.

Technology has broadened at the same time. EEG and optical or ultrasound BCIs gained both deal activity and capital, while interface hardware and decoding software also attracted more financing.

The market still has a major measurement problem: 20 current deals do not have precise disclosed amounts. That means we trust the conclusions on deal breadth, company formation, stage and geography more than any overly precise statement about total capital allocation.

The easy headline would be that BCI funding rose 52%. The better description is that the market became broader, younger, less concentrated and much more active below the megaround tier.