What are the latest funding trends in neurotechnology?

All funding deals in the neurotechnology market over the last years

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 neurotechnology funding actually growing right now?

Neurotechnology funding is growing fast in terms of activity today: we found 72 financings and 71 funded companies so far in 2026, even though the $1.445 billion of calculable capital is 11% below the same period last year.

The jump in activity is hard to miss. Over the same January 1–September 21 period, we counted 52 deals in 2025 and 41 in 2024. Unique funded companies went from 38 to 50 and then 71. In two years, the number of companies raising money has increased by almost 87%.

Round sizes are holding up too. The median disclosed financing reached $14 million this year, above $11.2 million in 2025 and $12 million in 2024. The average fell to $32.1 million from $36.1 million last year because 2025 contained Neuralink's $650 million round.

The one number we should handle more carefully is total capital. Only 45 of the 72 financings this year have amounts precise enough to include in our calculations, compared with 45 of 52 last year. A large part of the missing data comes from Chinese announcements using wording such as “tens of millions of RMB” or “more than RMB100 million.” We know the deals happened; we just refuse to turn vague disclosures into fake precision.

Measure	2026 YTD	2025 YTD	2024 YTD	2026 vs. 2025
Deals	72	52	41	+38.5%
Unique companies	71	50	38	+42.0%
Calculable capital	$1.445B	$1.626B	$810.8M	-11.1%
Median round	$14.0M	$11.2M	$12.0M	+24.8%
Average round	$32.1M	$36.1M	$22.5M	-11.1%
Largest round	$286.3M	$650M	$200M	-56.0%
First-financing share	36.1%	23.1%	14.6%	+13.0 pp
Early-stage share	62.5%	51.9%	53.7%	+10.6 pp

Are more neurotechnology startups getting funded, or are the same companies raising again?

Far more neurotechnology startups are getting funded now, and repeated rounds by the same companies explain very little of the increase.

We found 71 unique companies behind 72 financings in 2026. That is unusually close to a one-company-per-deal market. Only one company recorded multiple qualifying rounds during the period, compared with two companies in 2025 and three in 2024.

The full-year comparison gives some perspective. By September 21, this year had already produced 72 deals, compared with 74 during the whole of 2025 and 57 during all of 2024. We are comparing different lengths of time here, so those annual figures should stay secondary, but they show how busy 2026 has become.

There is also more money reaching companies that appear to be raising their first qualifying external financing. We identified 26 such deals this year, compared with 12 in 2025 and six in 2024. Their median financing reached $6.35 million.

We treat that last measure as directional because reconstructing the complete funding history of every private company, especially young Chinese companies, is not always possible from public information. The jump is still large enough to matter. These days, neurotechnology funding reaches a much wider pool of startups than it did two years ago.

Is neurotechnology's funding growth just being inflated by giant rounds?

The 2026 increase in neurotechnology deal activity survives the megaround test easily, while most of the apparent capital growth versus 2024 disappears once we remove the biggest financings.

This helps explain why the market can feel much hotter without showing a record capital total. We calculate $1.445 billion of funding this year, up 78% from $810.8 million in the same 2024 period. Remove financings above $50 million and the comparison becomes $441 million versus $445.7 million. At that level, capital has barely moved.

The comparison with 2025 is different. Total calculable capital is down 11%. Excluding rounds above $50 million leaves it down 8%, and excluding rounds above $100 million leaves it down about 7%. The direction hardly changes.

Last year was especially skewed by Neuralink's $650 million round, which represented around 40% of the comparable-period total. This year's largest deal, BrainCo's roughly $286 million financing, represents about 20%.

Large checks still matter enormously. Nine disclosed financings exceeded $50 million this year, compared with seven last year and three in 2024. Three went above $100 million. One single company just no longer dominates the entire capital picture.

Funding test	2026 YTD	2025 YTD	2024 YTD
Calculable capital	$1.445B	$1.626B	$810.8M
Capital excluding >$50M	$441.0M	$480.3M	$445.7M
Capital excluding >$100M	$802.0M	$861.3M	$610.7M
Median disclosed round	$14.0M	$11.2M	$12.0M
Largest round	$286.3M	$650M	$200M
Top deal share	19.8%	40.0%	24.7%
Top 3 share	44.5%	53.2%	45.0%
Rounds above $50M	9	7	3
Rounds above $100M	3	2	1

Are normal neurotechnology rounds getting bigger too?

Yes, the typical disclosed neurotechnology round is a little bigger today, and the $50–100 million part of the market has become noticeably busier.

The $14 million median is 25% above last year's $11.2 million and 17% above 2024. We prefer the median here because one $250 million or $600 million financing can make an average almost meaningless in a market of this size.

The middle of the distribution is useful too. Seven 2026 financings landed between $50 million and $100 million, compared with four in 2025 and one in 2024. Spiro Medical raised $67 million for its pulmonary neuromodulation system, while Axoft raised $55 million to advance its implantable BCI into clinical development.

At the smaller end, 28 of the 45 deals with usable amounts were below $20 million. A typical neurotechnology company is therefore still raising single-digit or low-double-digit millions, with a thicker group now reaching the upper tens of millions.

The 2026 market is broader at both ends: more small and early financings are happening, while the $50–100 million bracket is much more populated than it was two years ago.

Why is brain-computer interface funding suddenly everywhere?

Brain-computer interfaces have become the main growth engine in neurotechnology funding, with BCI deal count rising from four in 2024 to 13 in 2025 and 34 today.

BCI now represents 47.2% of the financings we tracked and 64% of calculable capital. Two years ago, it represented less than 10% of deals. Few category rotations happen this quickly.

The large rounds get attention first. BrainCo raised roughly $286 million. Merge Labs raised about $252 million. Axoft raised $55 million. Active Technology, a Shanghai company founded this year, announced a RMB330 million angel round, roughly $49 million, to push its invasive BCI platform toward clinical use.

The long tail is equally important. Our research found financings for companies working on flexible implanted electrodes, dedicated neural chips, EEG-based rehabilitation systems, non-invasive interfaces, language neuroprostheses and sensory-restoration platforms. Many of these companies barely existed two or three years ago.

BCI is also pulling in money from outside conventional medical-device venture capital. OpenAI participated in Merge Labs' Seed and said directly that it sees brain-computer interfaces as a new way for people to interact with AI. The two companies also plan to work together on scientific foundation models and other research tools.

More startups, larger financings and new types of investors are arriving at the same time. That is what makes the current BCI wave look much deeper than a few headline rounds.

Is China really behind the neurotechnology funding surge?

China is driving a huge part of the current increase in neurotechnology funding activity, accounting for 41 of the 72 deals we found this year.

The change happened extremely quickly. We counted 10 Chinese financings in the comparable 2025 period and only two in 2024. Asia-Pacific now represents 65.3% of all deals, compared with 26.9% last year.

BrainCo is the biggest Chinese financing in our dataset, but removing its roughly $286 million round does not make the regional story disappear. Asia-Pacific produced around $704 million of calculable capital this year. Without BrainCo, roughly $418 million remains, versus about $89 million in the comparable 2025 period.

The policy backdrop has also become much more concrete lately. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and six other government bodies published a national BCI development plan in 2025 covering electrodes, chips, complete systems, clinical applications, industrial clusters and financing support. The plan targets an advanced BCI technology and industrial system by 2027.

Healthcare pricing is moving as well. China's National Healthcare Security Administration established specific medical-service pricing categories for invasive and non-invasive BCI procedures. It later reported that most provinces had begun setting guidance prices. In a further update this year, the authority introduced a mechanism designed to create payment pathways earlier for advanced medical technologies, explicitly discussing BCI implantation as an example.

We cannot turn that chronology into proof that government policy caused 41 financings. Still, it helps explain why so many Chinese teams are becoming financeable at once: investors can now see a clearer industrial strategy, a developing clinical framework and an increasingly visible route from laboratory research toward commercial deployment.

Geography	2026 deals	2026 deal share	2026 capital share	2025 deal share
China	41	56.9%	n/a	19.2%
Asia-Pacific	47	65.3%	48.7%	26.9%
North America	16	22.2%	47.7%	48.1%
Europe	9	12.5%	3.6%	21.2%
Asia-Pacific excluding BrainCo	46	63.9%	≈28.9%	n/a
North America vs. AP deal gap	-31	-43.1 pp	-1.0 pp	+21.2 pp
China deal increase vs. 2025	+31	+37.7 pp	n/a	-

Is neuromodulation losing the neurotechnology funding race?

Neuromodulation is still attracting serious money, but it has lost a lot of ground to BCI in the current neurotechnology funding mix.

Neuromodulation accounted for 63.4% of the deals we tracked in 2024 and 51.9% in 2025. Today, it represents 30.6%. Its share of calculable capital followed a similar path, falling from 61.1% to 37.6% and then 28.3%.

The category itself is far from quiet. Spiro Medical closed a $67 million Series A for a pulmonary neuromodulation system targeting asthma. ANEUVO raised $22 million in Series C funding as it builds manufacturing and regulatory capacity around ExaStim. Aurenar raised $5.7 million shortly after its V-Link platform received FDA Breakthrough Device designation for an ICU application following brain hemorrhage.

Those are substantial clinical programs. Neuromodulation simply no longer occupies most of the market by itself. BCI has grown around it.

Neuro Monitoring Tools are also becoming more common at a smaller scale. We found eight deals this year compared with one in the same 2025 period. Wavelet Medical's fetal EEG platform, Time is Brain's stroke-monitoring system and several Asian wearable-neurotechnology companies are part of that emerging layer.

The category map is much more diverse now than it was when neuromodulation accounted for nearly two-thirds of transactions.

Has neurotechnology funding moved back toward Seed rounds?

Neurotechnology funding has become much more early-stage this year, with Seed rounds now accounting for 51.4% of all deals.

Seed represented less than 30% of financings in both previous comparable periods. Series A also accounts for another 11.1% this year, taking our combined early-stage share to 62.5%.

Later-stage activity has moved sharply in the other direction. Series D+ fell from 9.6% of deals last year to 1.4% now. Its capital share dropped from 60.6% to 1.9%, although Neuralink's $650 million Series E makes that year-over-year dollar comparison unusually extreme.

There is one important wrinkle: “Seed” currently covers some very different animals. Merge Labs' approximately $252 million round is classified as Seed. Active Technology's RMB330 million angel financing also sits at the earliest end of the market while being larger than many normal Series B rounds.

So we can be very confident that more early-stage companies are raising. We should be less eager to treat the amount of “Seed capital” as a description of what an ordinary founder can raise.

Stage	2026 deal share	2025 deal share	2024 deal share	2026 capital share
Seed	51.4%	28.8%	29.3%	31.5%
Series A	11.1%	23.1%	24.4%	13.0%
Series B	8.3%	17.3%	9.8%	8.5%
Series C	4.2%	1.9%	9.8%	8.8%
Series D+	1.4%	9.6%	12.2%	1.9%
Growth Equity	2.8%	3.8%	2.4%	8.5%
Unknown	20.8%	15.4%	12.2%	27.9%

Are completely new neurotechnology startups getting serious money now?

Yes, younger neurotechnology companies are getting funded much earlier, and some of them are raising unusually large first rounds.

The median age of a funded company in our researched sample has fallen from seven years in 2024 to six years last year and three years today. Among Seed companies, the current median is just one year.

BCI shows the change even more clearly. The median funded BCI company was 12.5 years old in 2024. It is two years old now.

Active Technology is an unusually clear example. The company was founded in 2026 and announced a RMB330 million angel round later the same year. Xinsheng Shijie was also founded this year and raised close to RMB100 million for an invasive BCI platform. BCI-Sonics, founded in 2025, announced an angel-series financing at roughly the RMB100 million level.

The United States has its own version of this pattern. Spiro Medical, founded in 2023, closed a $67 million Series A around a new pulmonary neuromodulation system.

Young neurotechnology companies are no longer confined to tiny experimental checks. Some are arriving with enough capital to fund clinical work, specialized hardware and manufacturing from the start.

Are giant Seed rounds making neurotechnology look richer than it really is?

Yes, a few oversized early rounds make the current Seed market look far richer than the experience of a normal neurotechnology startup.

Merge Labs is the obvious outlier at roughly $252 million. That one financing alone pushes Seed capital far above what we normally associate with the stage.

The strategic context also makes Merge unusual. OpenAI said it invested because it sees BCI as an important future interface for computing and AI. Merge is combining biology, devices and AI rather than following the normal path of a narrowly defined medical-device startup. OpenAI also plans to collaborate with the company on scientific foundation models and other research tools.

Active Technology gives us a second version of the phenomenon in China. Its RMB330 million angel financing is intended for facilities, equipment, clinical trials and team expansion around a full-stack invasive BCI platform.

Most early financings look very different. Our dataset also contains rounds around $1.5 million, $3 million, $5 million, $7 million and $14 million.

As seen above, the median disclosed financing across the entire market is $14 million. That is a much more useful anchor for understanding normal funding conditions than the hundreds of millions raised by the biggest Seed-labeled projects.

Is strategic money becoming a bigger part of neurotechnology?

Strategic investors are showing up more often in neurotechnology now, especially where a startup needs manufacturing, clinical access or technology that sits next to its own.

We identified strategic participation in 11 deals this year, compared with six during each of the previous comparable periods. The share has moved from 11.5% last year to 15.3% today.

BrainCo's investor mix shows why these relationships can matter. Lens Technology manufactures core hardware modules and has been described as a mass-production partner. Lingyi iTech operates in electronics manufacturing, while OmniVision brings semiconductor expertise. That is useful capital for a company trying to turn neurotechnology into physical products at scale.

ANEUVO offers another example. Its $22 million Series C was led by Catcher Technology, a precision manufacturer moving further into high-end medical devices. NeuroLife launched with a $2.9 million Seed involving Battelle, which developed and licensed the underlying NeuroLife platform.

Then there is OpenAI and Merge Labs, where the connection is scientific and computational rather than manufacturing-led.

Strategic participation is becoming more varied. Corporate investors are entering at different points of the value chain, from chips and production to clinical infrastructure and AI.

Are the same venture funds controlling neurotechnology funding?

No, neurotechnology's investor base looks unusually broad right now, with 73 different disclosed lead or co-lead investors across the deals we researched.

That compares with 59 in the same period last year and 35 two years ago. Disclosed-lead coverage is reasonably similar across the periods, so the increase is not simply coming from better reporting.

Very few investors repeat often enough to look dominant. Matrix Partners China and Morningside Ventures are the only leads appearing twice in our 2026 sample.

The financing syndicates also span very different investor types. Traditional life-sciences funds sit alongside Chinese technology investors, government-linked capital, industrial manufacturers, healthcare organizations and large technology companies.

For founders, that broadens the pool of plausible backers. The current expansion is not depending on one small group of specialist neurotech funds to finance every company.

Is North America losing its lead in neurotechnology funding?

North America has lost its lead in neurotechnology deal volume, although American companies still raise very large amounts when they do get funded.

North America accounts for 16 financings in 2026, compared with 47 in Asia-Pacific. One year earlier, North America still represented 48.1% of the deals we tracked.

Capital is almost evenly split, however. North America captures 47.7% of calculable funding and Asia-Pacific 48.7%.

The regional markets look quite different today. North America is producing fewer financings, but rounds such as Merge Labs' approximately $252 million Seed, Spiro Medical's $67 million Series A and Axoft's $55 million Series A keep the region highly capital-intensive.

Asia-Pacific, led overwhelmingly by China, has a much wider company base. Many of its financings are Seed, Angel, Pre-A or otherwise early stage, and a significant number do not disclose exact amounts.

Neurotechnology now has two very different centers of gravity: North America remains home to some of the biggest individual checks, while China is creating far more funded companies.

Could 2026 become the busiest neurotechnology funding year yet?

2026 is already one of the busiest neurotechnology funding years in our research by deal count, with 72 financings recorded before the final quarter.

For context, we counted 74 deals during the whole of 2025. This year's activity has already reached 97% of that full-year total. It has also passed the 57 deals recorded during all of 2024.

Capital is much less conclusive. The $1.445 billion we can calculate today equals about 68% of full-year 2025 capital. We also have poorer amount disclosure this year, so the true gap is smaller than the calculable figures suggest, but we cannot know by how much.

We do not annualize venture funding because one large closing can change a year's total overnight. The final months could contain no giant round or several.

For now, the unusually high deal count is the cleaner conclusion. The market has already produced almost an entire 2025's worth of financings with part of the year still remaining.

What is actually changing in neurotechnology funding right now?

Neurotechnology funding is going through a real expansion in the number and type of companies investors are willing to back, with BCI and China responsible for much of the change.

The strongest change is breadth. Seventy-one companies have raised across 72 deals, and the number of funded companies is up 42% from last year. This conclusion does not depend on one huge financing or on a complicated adjustment.

A new generation of companies is also appearing much earlier. The median funded company is three years old, Seed now represents more than half of deals, and first-financing activity has climbed sharply. Some young companies are arriving with $10 million, $50 million or even much more rather than spending years working through tiny rounds.

BCI has become the market's main growth category. It accounts for almost half of deals and nearly two-thirds of calculable capital, while neuromodulation has lost much of its former share. That rotation is happening alongside a major geographic change: 41 of this year's 72 deals involve Chinese companies.

The dollar story is more restrained. Calculable capital remains below last year's comparable total, and the large increase versus 2024 largely vanishes when rounds above $50 million are removed. Anyone describing 2026 simply as a huge funding boom would miss what has actually happened underneath.

The more interesting development these days is that neurotechnology is becoming a much larger startup ecosystem. More young companies are being formed, more investors are participating, China has become central to deal creation, and BCI is absorbing attention that was previously concentrated much more heavily in neuromodulation.

That expansion is already visible. Whether all these new companies can survive clinical validation, manufacturing and commercialization is the part we cannot answer from funding data yet.