Weiling Medical raises over 100 million yuan to accelerate clinical translation of implantable brain-computer interfaces

Recently, Weiling Medical announced the completion of a funding round exceeding RMB 100 million, led by Junzhong Capital, with its Jiaxing Innotech Industrial Fund as one of the primary investors. Previously, Weiling Medical had secured backing from several top-tier investment firms including Gaorong Ventures, Life Science Park Ventures, CDH Investments, and Leaguer Sci-Tech Innovation. Gaorong Ventures led the company's angel-plus round in 2023.

This round of funding will focus on advancing clinical validation of core implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) products, accelerating the medical device registration process, building out manufacturing capabilities, and continuing to expand clinical applications for neural function restoration.

Medical-Grade Brain-Computer Interfaces

Addressing the Treatment Crisis in Severe Brain Injury

Brain-computer interfaces have been designated a priority area in China's national "15th Five-Year Plan" for future industries, with policy directives explicitly calling for technology deployment in brain disease diagnosis and treatment, neural rehabilitation, and brain health monitoring. While most current industry solutions lean toward consumer-grade applications, products that actually reach serious medical settings and respond to real clinical needs of severe brain injury patients remain scarce. Patients with severe brain injuries often suffer from disorders of consciousness, complete paralysis, and loss of speech — complex conditions that place enormous psychological and physical strain on families over extended periods. Weiling Medical has targeted this unmet clinical need, developing a comprehensive medical approach of "diagnose first, then treat; repair and replace as one" that covers the full treatment cycle for brain injury patients from preoperative assessment, intraoperative monitoring, to postoperative restoration.

• Diagnose first, then treat: Using high-precision neural signal acquisition and AI decoding to precisely map brain injury regions and assess functional boundaries, providing objective data support for individualized treatment;

• Repair and replace as one: Building a closed-loop "brain-machine-body" therapeutic system that first prioritizes activating the patient's own neural plasticity through BCI training to achieve native functional recovery; for functions where neural damage is too severe and recovery potential is limited, implantable devices partially substitute motor and speech functions, enhancing the patient's ability to communicate with the outside world.

Based on this core approach, the company has established two synergistic product pipelines: a brain function protection and auxiliary diagnosis series, and a brain injury treatment repair-and-replacement series, forming a complete neural disease solution from diagnosis to rehabilitation.

China's First Fully Implantable BCI Surgery for Disorders of Consciousness

According to publicly available information, Weiling Medical is the first team in China to deeply pursue clinical validation of implantable BCI therapy for severe brain injury, and currently the only company conducting clinical research on implantable BCI treatment for patients with disorders of consciousness. The team's choice to focus on central nervous system critical care stems from founder Xiaojian Li's long-term dedication to functional neural circuits and physiological repair mechanisms. "Families of severe brain injury patients are the most helpless and suffering. We want to be the first to validate the medical value of implantable brain-computer interface technology in the most painful and difficult clinical scenarios."

The company recently completed, in partnership with a collaborating hospital, the nation's first fully implantable BCI system implantation in a patient with a disorder of consciousness. The patient had suffered severe brain injury from a brainstem hemorrhage, resulting in complete paralysis and inability to speak, able to communicate only through minimal eye movement. After one and a half months of standardized closed-loop BCI rehabilitation training, the patient's left upper limb progressed from complete flaccidity to being able to voluntarily raise the arm, easily lift the wrist, and perform multiple gesture movements — with quantifiably trackable neural recovery outcomes. This clinical result formally validates the feasibility of implantable BCIs for in-situ neural reconstruction, promoting arousal in minimally conscious state patients, and reviving function in paralyzed limbs, marking a critical breakthrough for China's medical-grade implantable BCI therapy in the field of severe brain disease.

Full-Stack Self-Developed System Taking Shape

Clinical and Registration Efforts Advancing Rapidly in Parallel

Relying on independently controllable R&D capabilities spanning neural signal acquisition, hardware circuitry, and AI decoding, Weiling Medical's industrialization progress continues to accelerate:

1. Brain network diagnosis pipeline: The world's first neurosurgery-dedicated high-throughput intracranial EEG machine, along with its matching flexible thin-film cortical electrode array, has entered the registration phase, with commercial launch expected within 1-2 years;

2. Fully implantable treatment pipeline: The fully implantable BCI system has initiated multi-center clinical trials, while simultaneously expanding indications for multiple neurological diseases, accelerating Class III medical device registration applications;

3. Clinical collaboration: As of July 2026, the company has established clinical partnerships with over 20 top-tier tertiary hospitals nationwide, accumulating hundreds of cases of brain network clinical data and building a proprietary neurosurgical database.

Weiling Medical founder Xiaojian Li stated: "We are deeply grateful for the long-term recognition and support from our new and existing investors. Brain-computer interfaces are a hard-tech field requiring sustained deep commitment, and like-minded capital partners provide solid backing for our team's clinical translation and technology iteration. The recovery data from our first disorder-of-consciousness patient confirms that our medical BCI approach of 'diagnose first, then treat; repair and replace as one' delivers clear clinical value. With this funding round completed, the company will expand multi-center clinical research scope, accelerate device registration progress, and bring safe, accessible implantable BCI rehabilitation solutions to severe brain injury patients as soon as possible."