Sisen Technology, a Tsinghua-and-ETH ultrasonic BCI startup, raises tens of millions of yuan for glioblastoma drug delivery

By Inside BCI · July 1, 2026

Patients diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most aggressive primary brain cancer, have a median survival of roughly fifteen to eighteen months and a five-year survival rate under ten per cent. The clinical failure mode is not usually a lack of active chemotherapeutic drugs; it is that the blood-brain barrier keeps those drugs out of the tumour tissue at therapeutically useful concentrations.

A Chinese ultrasonic brain-computer interface startup called Sisen Technology announced on 1 July 2026, per 36Kr’s Hard Krypton exclusive, that it has raised tens of millions of yuan in seed funding to attack that specific bottleneck. The round was co-led by Inno Angel Fund and Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund. Sisen was founded in December 2025 and describes its lead product as a “digital cranial ultrasonic device,” positioned as non-invasive to semi-invasive, that opens the blood-brain barrier through focused ultrasound to admit large-molecule drugs that otherwise fail to reach the brain at therapeutic concentrations. The first commercial indication is glioblastoma, using chemotherapeutic agents such as paclitaxel and the oncology antibody bevacizumab. The 36Kr report also names lecanemab, the Alzheimer’s-targeting anti-amyloid antibody approved by the US FDA in July 2023, as a separate future indication in neurodegenerative disease rather than a glioblastoma drug. Animal and first-in-human trials are planned for 2026 per the seed announcement, with proceeds allocated to team build-out, prototype refinement, and pre-clinical work.

Sisen’s founding team is a Tsinghua and ETH Zurich alumni cohort, all born between 1995 and 2000. Chief executive Yan Yimo holds a Master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Tsinghua University and a PhD and postdoctoral position in biomedical engineering from ETH Zurich, and is a recipient of the ETH Entrepreneurship Pioneer Award. Chief technology officer Gao Quan holds an ETH PhD in robotics and medical engineering. Chief scientist Li Yuxiao holds a PhD in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, has collaborated on artificial intelligence safety research at MIT, and is a graduate of Huawei’s Genius Youth Program. The company is described in the 36Kr report as the youngest ultrasonic brain-computer team in China, though that framing is investor-quoted rather than independently verified.

What the “digital cranial ultrasonic device” actually is

Ultrasonic brain-computer interfaces are a distinct modality inside the broader BCI category. They avoid the surgical craniotomy required by intracortical implants (Neuralink N1, Paradromics Connexus, Neuracle, NeuroXess) and the endovascular procedure required by Synchron’s Stentrode. Ultrasonic BCI systems either send focused ultrasound into brain tissue to modulate neurons (neuromodulation), receive ultrasound signals that image cerebral blood flow to infer neural activity (functional ultrasound and ultrasound localization microscopy), or use focused ultrasound to transiently open the blood-brain barrier (BBB) for drug delivery. Sisen’s initial commercial product targets the third use case, drug delivery, with the first indication being glioblastoma.

The three-phase Sisen roadmap, per the 36Kr report, is: first, blood-brain barrier opening for drug delivery in oncology and neurodegenerative indications; second, signal reading for motor decoding, which is the more familiar BCI use case for paralysis; and third, an ultrasonic neuromodulation platform combining adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy delivery with photosensitive protein engineering for selective neural control. The three phases build on the same underlying ultrasonic hardware.

Sisen names Carthera, a Lyon-based French neurotech company running Phase III trials of its SonoCloud device for recurrent glioblastoma, as the international comparator its roadmap most directly parallels. The Sisen positioning is that no Chinese company has previously entered the ultrasonic BBB-opening space at clinical stage, which the seed announcement uses as an underlying rationale for the round.

Where Sisen fits in the Chinese BCI cohort

Chinese brain-computer interface companies have to date been dominated by two modalities: invasive intracortical electrode arrays (Neuracle Technology, whose product received the March 2026 China National Medical Products Administration approval that Neuracle describes as the world’s first commercial invasive BCI, plus NeuCyber in Beijing, StairMed in Shanghai, and NeuroXess with a Jiangxi manufacturing facility) and non-invasive electroencephalography systems (BrainCo in Hangzhou). Both categories are more mature commercially than ultrasonic BCI in China. Neuracle’s STAR Market IPO prospectus was accepted on 11 June 2026, and BrainCo filed a confidential Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing in January 2026. Inside BCI has covered each of those separately.

Sisen adds ultrasonic BCI to the Chinese cohort as a new modality slot. The company sits inside the broader Chinese industrial-policy push that has produced the Guangdong Dual-Core Action Plan on 24 June 2026 (targeting a ten billion yuan core BCI industry by 2030), the Jiangsu provincial BCI Action Plan of 10 March 2026, and the seven-ministry Implementation Opinions of 23 July 2025. Sisen was seed-funded during that policy window, and the investor group (Inno Angel Fund and Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund) is domestic Chinese capital consistent with the Industrial Builder posture that Inside BCI has been tracking.

The ultrasonic modality itself has a small but real global cohort. Aleph Neuro, a San Francisco research lab, published a first three-dimensional ultrasound localization microscopy image of a living human brain through an intact skull on 24 June 2026 (Inside BCI covered separately). Forest Neurotech is building an implantable acoustic-window ultrasonic BCI using Butterfly Network’s Ultrasound-on-Chip platform, backed by a fourteen-million-dollar commitment from Eric Schmidt channelled through Convergent Research, a Focused Research Organization in the Schmidt Futures Network. Iconeus in Paris sells preclinical functional-ultrasound scanners. Merge Labs, co-founded by Sam Altman alongside Caltech’s Mikhail Shapiro and colleagues from Forest Neurotech and Tools for Humanity, closed a two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar seed round from OpenAI’s investment arm in January 2026 and has no publicly named chief executive as of that announcement. Carthera is closest to the Sisen roadmap on the specific drug-delivery use case. Sisen positions itself as the Chinese entrant in this global cohort.

What to watch

The first signal is Sisen’s animal-and-first-in-human trial timeline. The seed announcement says both animal and human trials are planned for 2026. An investigator-initiated trial at a Chinese hospital, without initial NMPA clinical-trial approval, is a plausible first step; a formally registered NMPA IND would be a stronger commercial signal.

The second signal is the NMPA regulatory pathway Sisen elects for the drug-delivery use case. Ultrasonic BBB-opening devices are a novel category in Chinese medical-device regulation, and how the NMPA classifies the device (Class II or Class III) and which submission pathway applies will shape the commercial timeline. NMPA classification would be a verifiable dated milestone.

The third signal is whether Sisen closes a Series A round in 2026 or early 2027. The seed round covers prototype and pre-clinical work; clinical-stage work will require a substantially larger round. The identity of a Series A lead investor (Chinese venture, sovereign capital, cross-border strategic) will indicate the trajectory Sisen is on.

The fourth signal is whether Sisen’s stated three-phase roadmap holds. Ultrasonic BBB opening (Phase 1), motor decoding via ultrasound (Phase 2), and ultrasonic neuromodulation (Phase 3) are three technically distinct commercial products, and building all three from a single seed round is ambitious. The commercial coherence of the roadmap will become visible as the team scales.

Sources

market China Sisen-Technology ultrasonic-BCI glioblastoma blood-brain-barrier Tsinghua-University ETH-Zurich Inno-Angel-Fund Tsinghua-Alumni-Seed-Fund Yan-Yimo Industrial-Builder-posture

What the “digital cranial ultrasonic device” actually is

Where Sisen fits in the Chinese BCI cohort

What to watch

Weekly BCI Brief in your inbox