Overview

StairMed Technology is the best-capitalised pure-play invasive BCI company in China, having raised over $160 million in cumulative funding within roughly one year. Its March 2026 strategic round of CN¥500 million ($72.5 million), led by Alibaba with SDIC Unity Capital co-investing, marked the first direct BCI investment for both Alibaba and Tencent.

Technology

StairMed builds penetrating-electrode arrays with ultra-flexible electrodes it says measure one-hundredth the thickness of a human hair, designed to reduce the chronic inflammatory response that degrades signal quality over time. Its second-generation WRS02 system is a wireless 256-channel implant paired with a proprietary surgical robot for electrode insertion.

Clinical Progress

The company completed its first clinical implantation using the full system — robot, implant, and decoder software — in early 2026 and verified brain-controlled interaction in a human patient. StairMed holds NMPA “green channel” fast-track status and plans to begin multicenter registration trials later in 2026, targeting approximately forty patient implantations by year-end.

Founding Team

Founded in 2021 by Li Xue, a returnee engineer with degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and Rice University, alongside co-founder and chief scientist Zhao Zhengtao.