Four Funding Rounds That Arrived With Spring | FreeS Family Funding News Vol.18
Looking forward to working alongside more outstanding founders.
The "FreeS Family Funding News" column regularly publishes updates on portfolio companies that FreeS Fund has invested in. In addition to new investments, we also cover follow-on rounds for companies already in our portfolio. Together, we witness every step of an innovative company's journey — from 0 to 1, from 1 to 10, and from 10 to 100.
This issue at a glance:
- Communications + Neuroscience: Dome Medical, a FreeS Fund angel-round project, raised tens of millions of RMB in Pre-A funding, with FreeS Fund continuing to invest
- Consumer + Technology: Dale Tech raised over ten million RMB in Pre-A funding, led by FreeS Fund
- AI + SaaS + Cross-border Recruitment Platform: Brix raised 20 million RMB in angel funding, led by FreeS Fund
- Optical Sensor Chips: VisionICs Microelectronics, a FreeS Fund Series A project, completed nearly 100 million RMB in Series C funding
(Funding information in this roundup covers only publicly disclosed rounds from December 2023 to February 2024, sorted by announcement date.)
▲ Dome Medical's non-invasive brain nerve stimulation device, NervioX-H0800
Image source: Dome Medical official website
Dome Medical, a FreeS Fund angel-round project, raised tens of millions of RMB in Pre-A funding, with FreeS Fund continuing to invest.
**/ From the Investors / **
The brain is the "final frontier" of life sciences research. As populations age and social rhythms accelerate, demand for diagnosis and treatment of neurological and psychiatric conditions will likely remain elevated. Neuromodulation serves as both an efficient research tool for understanding the brain and an increasingly powerful therapeutic approach for intervening in brain disorders. Temporal Interference (TI) technology stands out in the neuromodulation field as a rare innovation combining non-invasive, deep-brain, precise, and multi-target capabilities. Dome Medical has devoted years to this technology, completing product finalization and technical validation while actively exploring applications in psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.
As Dome Medical's angel-round investor, FreeS Fund continues to track frontier technologies in brain science and is optimistic about the company's potential to achieve breakthroughs in brain research, disease treatment, and the broader brain technology landscape.
**/ Company Details / **
Founded in November 2019, Dome Medical focuses on non-invasive deep-brain neuromodulation technology. Its core team comes primarily from the Biomedical Engineering Institute at Xi'an Jiaotong University's School of Life Sciences, with substantial technical expertise and accumulated experience in neuromodulation. The team began exploring TI technology in 2015, secured a National Natural Science Foundation of China project in 2017, and over eight years has accumulated nearly 1,000 animal experiments and close to 100 human clinical cases. Co-founder and CEO Dr. Long Li graduated from Xi'an Jiaotong University, specializing in neural system functional intervention technology; co-founder and chief scientist Yu Wang is a renowned expert in China's neuromodulation field and serves as vice chairman of the Chinese Neuromodulation Society. (Full coverage: 36Kr Pro — Dome Medical raises tens of millions in Pre-A funding to develop TI non-invasive deep-brain stimulation product)
▲ Dale Tech's pain-free digital guitar.
Image source: Dale Tech Dale Tech completed a Pre-A round of over ten million RMB, led by FreeS Fund.
**/ From the Investors / **
Music transcends culture. The global market of music enthusiasts far exceeds the existing stock of musical instruments, indicating significant room for penetration growth. The Dale Tech team is rooted in using technology to iterate on musical instruments, providing intelligent and entertainment-focused solutions for music lovers worldwide to learn and play. Moreover, the team has been deeply committed to this direction since 2016, with strong intrinsic motivation. We are optimistic about Dale Tech's future prospects.
**/ Company Details / **
Since its founding in 2016, Dale Tech has focused on digital electro-acoustic instruments, specializing in smart instruments for cross-border global expansion. From planning and developing its first product, Dale Tech has been setting new rules and new play patterns for the global smart instrument market. From the air plectrum to the "PocketDrum" motion-sensing drum kit, to its latest innovation after two years of R&D — the "Aeroband Guitar," a pain-free, easy-to-learn, portable guitar designed for mass-market music enthusiasts. (Full coverage: 36Kr Pro — Smart instrument maker "Dale Tech" raises Pre-A round led by FreeS Fund, with its "Aeroband" brand making a splash at global instrument exhibitions)
▲ Image source: Brix official website
Brix completed 20 million RMB in angel funding, led by FreeS Fund.
**/ From the Investors / **
Chinese companies going global are transitioning from commodity dividends to digital economy dividends, and right now is a period when the advantage of Chinese engineers going overseas is particularly pronounced. Chinese engineer labor costs are roughly one-third of what U.S. engineers cost domestically.
Brix has seized emerging demand in cross-border recruitment and digital HR management for remote work, leveraging generative AI technology through full-stack HR SaaS tools to provide U.S. companies with one-stop solutions for hybrid teams of local and cross-border workers.
The founding team is young and accomplished, with serial entrepreneurship experience and deep understanding of AI and the U.S. SaaS software industry. We look forward to Brix becoming a global leader in the new generation of HR SaaS and remote engineer employment platforms in the generative AI era.
**/ Company Details / **
Founded in December 2020 in the United States, Brix is dedicated to providing U.S. companies with one-stop remote cross-border employment solutions through an intelligent AI-powered cross-border recruitment platform. Brix has adopted a global remote work management model since its inception, with a team of under 50 people distributed across 25 cities in 6 countries. Core team members come from globally renowned universities and leading internet companies, with extensive experience in AI, HR SaaS, and user growth. (Full coverage: Intelligent Emergence — Building an AI cross-border recruitment platform, Brix raises 20 million RMB in angel funding)
▲ Image source: VisionICs Microelectronics official website
VisionICs Microelectronics completed nearly 100 million RMB in Series C funding, led by Integrity Venture Capital, with 37 Interactive Entertainment participating.
**/ From the Investors / **
▍The Advanced Nature of Single-Photon Technology and Its Broad Market Prospects
Congratulations to VisionICs Microelectronics on completing its Series C round, with special thanks to strategic investors for their trust and investment. When VisionICs Microelectronics was founded in 2018, single-photon technology was still quite niche — the few applications on the market were largely experimental or confined to vertical scientific research fields. In the company's first year, FreeS Fund identified and ultimately decided to invest in VisionICs Microelectronics, partly because of the exceptional founding team, and partly because this aligned with FreeS Fund's understanding and advocacy of first-principles thinking in technology investment.
We and the VisionICs Microelectronics team recognized the potential of single-photon technology early on. It is an optical sensing technology capable of detecting signals with energy equivalent to a single photon. Chips built with this technology are highly sensitive optical sensors, far more sensitive than conventional digital camera sensors. This extreme sensitivity is the foundation driving continuous advancement of single-photon technology.
VisionICs Microelectronics has become the first domestic company to launch single-photon chips and achieve stable mass production, establishing itself as a leading player in the single-photon chip field. These achievements stem from the founders' and team's years of technical accumulation, as well as their commitment to the Chinese market and pragmatic, down-to-earth efforts — the result of technology and market advancing together.
"Training" for Thousand-Li Vision, Ascending Another Floor
From an application perspective, single-photon technology use cases continue to expand — from early 3D radar applications in phones and tablets, to robot vacuums, and now extending to automotive autonomous driving LiDAR. Market demand for single-photon technology keeps growing.
At the same time, as time passes, Chinese-style "involution" will inevitably arrive. We look forward to VisionICs Microelectronics continuing to pioneer new technologies and develop new products, becoming a more diversified company oriented toward larger markets.
"'Training' for thousand-li vision, ascending another floor." We welcome more talented individuals and investment institutions to join VisionICs' entrepreneurial journey, together heading toward the vast ocean of stars.
VisionICs Microelectronics was founded in 2018 as one of the earlier companies globally to research single-photon dToF (direct Time-of-Flight) 3D imaging technology. To date, the team has developed full-stack capabilities in design and packaging/testing, with accumulated expertise in SPAD sensors, dToF system modeling, core DSP, dToF system solutions, and optical SiP design, maintaining a leading position in SPAD dToF technology and commercial implementation. In 2019, the company provided Huawei with 3D dToF sensor samples for evaluation; records indicate that VisionICs Microelectronics was the only company capable of delivering 3D dToF samples to Huawei for testing at that time. (Full coverage: 36Kr Pro — Achieving scaled commercial deployment of single-photon dToF, "VisionICs Microelectronics" completes nearly 100 million RMB in Series C funding)
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