Brain-computer interface funding tracker (72 deals)

Our funding tracker covering the brain-computer interface market

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

And, if you want to gain 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 market actually as well funded as the headlines suggest?

The brain-computer interface funding market is already a multi-billion-dollar market, but most BCI startups are operating on checks far smaller than the $2.816 billion headline total suggests.

We found 72 qualifying financings across 55 companies from January 2024 through early October 2026. Fifty rounds disclose or support a usable amount, adding up to $2.816 billion. Another 22 rounds have no precise dollar value, so the real amount invested is higher.

The more useful number for understanding an ordinary deal is the $20.8 million median. The average is $56.3 million, almost three times higher, because a handful of giant financings pull it upward.

The gap becomes obvious when we strip out the biggest checks. Remove rounds of $50 million or more and measurable capital drops to approximately $686 million. Twelve deals at or above that threshold account for 75.6% of all disclosed funding, while the remaining 60 deals share the rest or have undisclosed amounts.

For now, BCI funding is best understood as a relatively broad startup market sitting underneath a very narrow layer of exceptionally well-funded companies.

How many BCI companies are investors actually backing?

The current BCI funding market consists of 55 distinct companies in our research, and most of them have raised only once during the period we studied.

Forty-two companies appear in a single financing. Nine show up twice, and only four completed three or more qualifying rounds. That leaves 13 repeat fundraisers, or 23.6% of the company base.

The number is useful because 72 funding announcements can make the market feel more mature than it really is. Once we group repeat rounds by company, there are just 55 businesses underneath them. Seventy-two announcements turn out to be 55 companies, and we work through who is getting funded, and by whom, in our report on neurotech.

At the same time, we would not treat the low repeat rate as a failure rate. A large part of today's BCI cohort is extremely young, particularly in China. Companies founded in 2025 or 2026 simply have not had much time to come back for another institutional round.

Who has actually raised most of the money in BCI?

A small group of BCI companies controls most of the capital: the top ten account for 79.9% of the funding amounts we can measure.

Neuralink leads with $650 million during the period. Precision Neuroscience follows with at least $352 million across three rounds, then BrainCo at $336 million, Merge Labs at $252 million and Synchron at $200 million. Those five alone absorb 63.6% of recorded capital.

Further down, the pattern still holds. StairMed has raised at least $120.5 million, Nudge $100 million, bciflex Medical at least $84.8 million, Gestala $83.6 million and Mindtrix $70.8 million.

So there are dozens of funded BCI startups today, but the pool of companies that investors have been willing to capitalize at serious scale is still small.

Company	Qualifying rounds	Recorded capital
Neuralink	1	$650M
Precision Neuroscience	3	$352M+
BrainCo	3	$336M
Merge Labs	1	$252M
Synchron	1	$200M
StairMed	3	$120.5M+
Nudge	1	$100M
bciflex Medical	3	$84.8M+
Gestala	2	$83.6M
Mindtrix	2	$70.8M

Is BCI funding basically just Neuralink right now?

Neuralink has an outsized effect on BCI funding, but the market already has several independent companies capable of raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

Its $650 million Series E represents 23.1% of measurable funding in our period. That is enormous for one company, but it still leaves more than three-quarters of recorded capital elsewhere.

BrainCo raised $286 million in one financing. Merge Labs raised $252 million. Precision Neuroscience closed a $250 million Series D. Synchron raised $200 million.

Neuralink has also kept moving operationally since its financing. By January 2026, the company said 21 participants had received its implant, up sharply from the five participants mentioned when the Series E was announced. More recently, Neuralink reported work based on 50,000 hours of unlabeled brain data and an 11.32 bits-per-second decoding result.

Neuralink clearly stretches the market's aggregate numbers. The interesting change is that it no longer stands alone at the top of the financing market.

What can a normal BCI startup realistically raise?

For a normal measurable BCI financing today, something around $10 million to $40 million is far more representative than the spectacular nine-figure rounds that dominate the news.

The median disclosed round is $20.8 million. Fourteen deals fall between $5 million and $20 million, and another 14 land between $20 million and $50 million. Ten measurable rounds are below $5 million. The median round is $20.8 million, but a few are far bigger; we follow where the biggest rounds are going in our neurotech funding report.

Only seven financings reach $100 million or more, yet those seven rounds absorb $1.84 billion, or 65.4% of measurable funding.

A founder looking at the $56.3 million average would therefore get a distorted view of what this market usually finances. The typical BCI round is still measured in the tens of millions, with nine-figure capital reserved for a very small group.

Round size	Deals	Share of all deals	Recorded capital	Share of capital
Under $5M	10	13.9%	$21.3M	0.8%
$5M–<$20M	14	19.4%	$172.2M	6.1%
$20M–<$50M	14	19.4%	$492.6M	17.5%
$50M–<$100M	5	6.9%	$289.5M	10.3%
$100M+	7	9.7%	$1.840B	65.4%
Amount undisclosed	22	30.6%	-	-
Total	72	100%	$2.816B recorded	100%

Which type of BCI company is getting the serious money?

Implantable cortical BCI remains the biggest capital category today, with $1.184 billion across 22 financings.

That segment accounts for 30.6% of deals but 42.1% of measurable funding. The money is spread across several companies and stages rather than relying entirely on one new technical idea.

Optical and ultrasound BCI is already the second-largest category by measurable capital, at $504.6 million from 10 financings. That is unusually high for such a young cohort.

EEG goes the other way. It produces 20 deals, almost as many as implantable cortical BCI, but only $455.9 million of measurable capital. BrainCo alone contributes $336 million of that amount.

Surface and minimally invasive systems sit close behind with $424.1 million. Synchron's $200 million round makes endovascular BCI look extremely capital intensive, although one company is obviously too thin a sample to generalize from.

BCI category	Deals	Companies	Recorded capital	Capital share
Implantable cortical	22	17	$1.184B	42.1%
Optical & ultrasound	10	8	$504.6M	17.9%
EEG	20	15	$455.9M	16.2%
Surface / minimally invasive	10	8	$424.1M	15.1%
Endovascular	1	1	$200.0M	7.1%
Interface hardware	7	6	$46.0M	1.6%
Decoding software	2	2	$0.94M	<0.1%

Why can implantable BCI companies raise hundreds of millions?

Large implantable BCI rounds now tend to appear once a company has moved beyond a promising device and started building the clinical, regulatory and operational machinery needed for repeated use in humans.

Neuralink's $650 million Series E came after the company had started human trials across several countries. Its own announcement said five people were already using Neuralink systems to control digital and physical devices. The participant count later reached 21.

Precision Neuroscience gives us another useful example. Its $250 million Series D followed more than 100 patient procedures at 18 medical institutions. Precision had also secured FDA 510(k) clearance for its Layer 7 cortical electrode array in 2025, allowing temporary use for up to 30 days.

The FDA's own guidance shows why the development path is expensive. Implanted BCI companies have to deal with biocompatibility, electrical safety, electromagnetic compatibility, sterility, wireless performance, long-term device reliability, surgical considerations and clinical-study design.

By the time a BCI company reaches that point, investors are financing a medical-device organization, clinical infrastructure and years of accumulated evidence alongside the original neuroscience.

Are ultrasound and optical BCI startups becoming the new hot area?

Optical and ultrasound BCI is currently the clearest new area where investors are willing to place unusually large bets before the category has a long commercial track record.

The companies in this group have a median age of roughly one year, yet the category already accounts for $504.6 million of measurable funding. Merge Labs contributes about half of that amount with its $252 million seed financing, while Gestala has raised $83.6 million across two rounds. Ultrasound and optical startups are about a year old at the median yet hold $504.6 million; we ask where the openings are in our neurotech market report.

OpenAI's decision to participate in Merge Labs' seed round is revealing. In its January 2026 announcement, OpenAI said it sees BCI as a new interface for communicating with AI and described Merge's approach as combining biology, devices and AI to pursue safer, higher-bandwidth interfaces.

China's national BCI plan is moving in a similar technological direction. It explicitly calls for work on new sensing methods based on light, ultrasound and other modalities alongside conventional electrical interfaces.

We still do not know whether these approaches will produce a better commercial BCI than implanted electrodes. Investors are nevertheless paying a lot of attention to the possibility right now.

Is EEG still a serious BCI funding category?

EEG remains one of the biggest BCI categories by activity, although most EEG companies do not attract implant-style checks.

There are 20 EEG financings in our dataset, representing 27.8% of the market's deals. They account for 16.2% of measurable dollars, with a median disclosed round of $13 million.

BrainCo heavily influences the category because its $336 million of recorded funding represents 73.7% of measurable EEG capital. Outside BrainCo, EEG looks much more like a large population of lower-capital companies.

The category is still important because non-invasive systems can target different products, users and deployment settings from surgical BCI. China's current industrial policy explicitly includes lightweight consumer-oriented systems such as headsets, glasses, ear-worn devices and other non-implant formats, which helps explain why we continue to see broad company formation in this part of the market.

How early are investors backing BCI startups?

BCI investors are currently funding a huge number of startups at Seed, but the biggest pool of money still sits with companies that have moved much further.

Seed accounts for 38 of the 72 financings, or 52.8% of the entire market. Series A adds another nine. Among rounds where we could classify the stage, almost 80% are Seed or Series A.

The dollar distribution looks very different. Early-stage rounds represent only 39.4% of capital among classified deals, while Series B and later absorb 60.6%.

The median check also climbs quickly as companies progress: $13.8 million at Seed, $38.4 million at Series A, $48 million at B, $102 million at C and $225 million at D+.

As a result, BCI looks extremely early when we count deals and much more mature when we follow the money.

Stage	Deals	Companies	Recorded capital	Median round
Seed	38	34	$639.7M	$13.8M
Series A	9	8	$294.3M	$38.4M
Series B	5	4	$121.0M	$48.0M
Series C	2	2	$102.0M	$102.0M
Series D+	4	4	$1.142B	$225.0M
Growth Equity	1	1	$72.5M	$72.5M
Unknown	13	11	$443.8M	$13.0M

Where does the BCI funding ladder get really difficult?

The hardest visible jump in BCI funding today comes immediately after Seed: we count 38 Seed rounds and only nine Series A financings.

That is more than four Seed deals for every Series A. The funnel then narrows to five Series Bs and two Series Cs.

The four Series D+ rounds should not be read as a recovery in survival rates. Those are mostly established companies that entered our research window after spending years building technology and clinical evidence. Companies that reach Series D spent years building evidence first, and we look ahead to who the likely future winners are in our neurotech report.

Company age points in the same direction. The median Seed company is only one year old. Series A companies are around five years old, Series C companies seven, and D+ businesses 11.

The market can create new BCI startups very quickly. Getting one of those companies to the point where investors are willing to finance a mature clinical or commercial organization takes much longer.

Why are there suddenly so many BCI startups in China?

China's BCI startup boom is being helped by an unusually explicit national push to build the entire industry, from electrodes and chips to clinical systems and decoding software.

China accounts for 44 of the 72 financings we found, including 28 Seed rounds. Many of those companies are only one or two years old.

The policy support has become increasingly concrete. In 2025, seven national bodies led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a BCI industry plan targeting advances in electrodes, chips, complete systems, software and medical applications. The plan calls for two to three industrial clusters by 2027 and globally influential Chinese BCI companies by 2030.

China also created a dedicated BCI standardization technical committee in 2025. Then, in August 2026, the government released a draft national BCI industry standards framework covering the next layer of standardization work.

Beijing is going even further locally. Its current measures include proof-of-concept funding, dedicated clinical-trial channels, medical-device registration support, data and compute support, industrial parks and commercialization subsidies.

This explains why the Chinese financing wave is spread across so many layers of the stack. Investors are backing electrodes, chips, EEG, ultrasound, implantable systems and other interface hardware at the same time.

Does China actually lead BCI funding now?

China currently leads BCI by deal count, while the United States still has a commanding lead in large-scale funding.

China accounts for 44 transactions, or 61.1% of the market we researched, but only 33.9% of measurable capital. The United States has 18 deals and 63.4% of measurable capital. China has 61.1% of the deals but 33.9% of the capital, so we ask who is really ahead in our neurotech funding report.

That is a huge difference in market shape. China is producing many more newly funded companies; the US produces Neuralink, Precision Neuroscience, Synchron and other businesses capable of attracting checks measured in hundreds of millions.

The Chinese side is also harder to measure financially because many early rounds are announced only as broad RMB ranges such as "tens of millions of yuan." That affects dollar totals but barely changes the deal-count conclusion.

So as of now, China has the broader startup pipeline while the US still controls most of the scale capital.

Region	Deals	Companies	Recorded capital	Capital share
North America	18	14	$1.786B	63.4%
Asia-Pacific	47	36	$963.7M	34.2%
Europe	7	7	$65.7M	2.3%

Is Europe falling behind in BCI funding?

Europe currently has very little BCI scale capital compared with the US and China.

We found seven European financings involving seven companies, with $65.7 million of measurable funding across the whole period. INBRAIN Neuroelectronics' $50 million financing supplies more than three-quarters of that recorded amount.

No European deal exceeds $50 million. Meanwhile, the US has several companies raising $100 million to $650 million, and China is creating a much larger pipeline of new ventures.

Europe clearly has serious neuroscience research and BCI companies, so we should not confuse venture-funding depth with technical capability. Still, the financing gap is far too large to explain away with one or two missing transactions.

For investors looking specifically at private-company capital formation, Europe is currently a distant third.

Are BCI investors mostly funding newcomers or doubling down on companies they already know?

Most BCI money currently goes back into companies that have already raised before.

Follow-on financings make up 47 of the 72 deals, or 65.3%, and contribute $2.244 billion of measurable capital. First financings account for 21 deals and $511.9 million. Four other deals have an undetermined previous-financing status.

Those first rounds still brought a lot of new blood into the market: 21 of the 55 companies entered our observed funding ecosystem through a first financing.

Economically, though, repeat backing dominates. Investors are putting far more money into companies that have already survived an earlier diligence cycle, built technology, run studies or reached another concrete milestone.

That pattern also helps explain why the market can look like a startup explosion and a concentrated capital market at the same time.

Which BCI investors actually keep showing up?

BCI still lacks a small club of repeat lead investors that clearly holds the market together.

Lead information is available for 43 financings, and those deals involve 64 distinct lead investors. Only four lead names repeat: IDG Capital, Delian Capital, HongShan and Matrix Partners China. Only four of 64 lead investors repeat, and we follow who is placing the biggest bets in our report on neurotech.

Even those repeat leads account for only seven of the 43 deals with disclosed leadership. IDG stands out most because its two rounds involve $327.8 million of combined financing.

This is a surprisingly fragmented investor base for a market where the technical learning curve is so steep. There is no obvious handful of funds leading BCI round after BCI round across the whole ecosystem.

These days, the investor mix still looks like a combination of technology VCs, healthcare investors, generalist funds, sovereign capital and occasional specialist or industrial backers rather than a mature BCI financing network.

Are strategic investors actually important in BCI?

Strategic investors are showing interest in BCI, but they currently play a supporting role rather than a central one.

Only seven of the 72 financings include an identifiable strategic investor. Four are EEG deals, two are optical or ultrasound financings and one is implantable cortical BCI.

The names tell us more than the raw count. Well Lead Medical, Sumitomo Life, Paramount Bed, Lens Technology, Fourier Intelligence and other corporates are testing specific strategic angles. OpenAI's investment in Merge Labs is particularly interesting because it connects BCI directly to future AI interfaces rather than to conventional medical-device strategy.

Still, no strategic investor appears in more than one financing in our dataset, and none of the observed strategic deals sits in a conventionally classified later-stage round.

Most scale capital is still coming from financial investors. Corporate participation is useful validation in individual deals, but BCI does not yet have a recurring strategic-investor backbone.

Is BCI funding actually accelerating right now?

BCI deal activity has accelerated sharply, and 2026 is much busier than the two previous years in our funding research.

We count 10 financings in 2024, 21 in 2025 and 41 during the first nine completed months of 2026. August alone produced eight deals, followed by six in September.

The dollar figures are far more erratic because one large transaction can overwhelm an entire month. June 2025 contained just one deal, Neuralink's $650 million Series E, while August 2026 had eight transactions but only $109 million of disclosed capital.

January 2026 tells the same story in reverse: three financings generated $561 million.

The deal count is therefore the cleaner evidence of a widening ecosystem. Lately, more BCI companies have been reaching investors at the same time, even though total capital still jumps around with individual megarounds.

China's newest policy activity supports that reading. The national BCI standardization framework published for consultation in August 2026 and Beijing's ongoing clinical-commercialization programs show that the infrastructure surrounding company formation is still being built rather than winding down.

What is still missing from the BCI funding market?

The biggest missing piece in BCI funding is a deep middle class of companies between the Seed boom and the handful of heavily capitalized leaders.

There are 38 Seed rounds, nine Series As, five Series Bs and just two Series Cs. Most companies appear only once. Europe has almost no scale rounds. Repeat lead investors are rare. Strategic investors do not yet show up repeatedly across the later stages. Thin Series B and C layers and few repeat leads are real gaps, and we dig into the biggest unsolved problems in our report covering neurotech.

Standalone neural-decoding software is also tiny as a funding category, with only two deals and less than $1 million of measurable capital. That probably understates the importance of software itself because decoding is built directly into integrated BCI platforms. China's national plan, for example, gives decoding algorithms and BCI operating systems their own explicit development priorities.

The main question for this market now is whether today's huge group of young companies can create a larger Series A-to-C population over the next financing cycles.

If that middle layer develops, BCI starts to look like a genuinely deep venture category. If it remains thin, the market will continue to produce lots of experiments while most serious capital collects around a few proven platforms.

What should we actually take away from BCI funding today?

Brain-computer interface funding is currently broad at the startup level and extremely concentrated once we follow the money.

We found 55 funded companies, but only a small group has reached the point where investors are comfortable writing $100 million-plus checks. Implantable cortical BCI remains the most established capital category, while optical and ultrasound systems are attracting unusually aggressive early bets.

China is driving new-company formation. The US remains the center of scale financing. Europe is much smaller on both measures.

The market's biggest weakness sits between Seed and later-stage funding. Creating BCI startups is no longer unusual; building enough technical, clinical and regulatory evidence to keep climbing the financing ladder is much harder.

The recent increase in deal density is encouraging because it gives the market more shots on goal. Still, one or two giant rounds can make aggregate funding look healthier than the ordinary company experience really is.

For now, the cleanest description is a BCI market with a fast-growing experimental base, a narrow group of scale winners, and a middle that still needs to fill in.