Overview

StairMed Technology is a Shanghai invasive BCI company, having raised over $160 million in cumulative funding within roughly one year. Its March 2026 strategic round of CN¥500 million (about $72.7 million), led by Alibaba with SDIC Unity Capital co-investing, included follow-on investment from existing shareholder 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 first implant in its investigator-initiated trial with CAS’s CEBSIT and Huashan Hospital took place on 25 March 2025, and StairMed reported 18 cumulative implants on 20 July 2026. StairMed holds NMPA “green channel” fast-track status and plans a registration trial of about forty patients, with market entry targeted around 2028.

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 Zhengtuo, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT).