CNBC profiles BrainCo as the Hangzhou non-invasive BCI leader runs up to its Hong Kong IPO

By Inside BCI · July 10, 2026

The distribution channel that United States C-suite executives use to track China’s technology-industry storylines is US business television. On 10 July 2026, CNBC published a video interview with Nyx He, Partner and Senior Vice President at BrainCo, conducted by CNBC’s Hong Kong-based China reporter Elaine Yu. The interview lands six months after BrainCo confidentially filed for a Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing on 12 January 2026, six months after the company closed a ¥2 billion (approximately US$286 million) financing round on 8 January 2026 co-led by IDG Capital and Walden International, and three months after Nyx He presented BrainCo on stage at the HSBC Global Investment Summit in Hong Kong on 16 April 2026, where a BrainRobotics-equipped user demonstrated the bionic prosthetic hand playing piano. That specific sequence, US business television profile interview after a January 2026 confidential HK IPO filing after a January 2026 mega round, is what the CNBC video represents.

The distribution event is the story, not the video content itself. Inside BCI cannot access the video body directly to extract quotes. The verifiable specifics are the CNBC editorial choice to run the profile, the identity of the reporter and the subject, and the six-month sequence that led to today’s interview. That combination makes the CNBC video a legitimation event for a Chinese BCI company under industrial-builder posture that is now visibly seeking US institutional-investor attention through the Hong Kong public-market path.

Who Nyx He is

Nyx He (Chinese given name Xiyujin, full name Nyx (Xiyujin) He) is Partner and Senior Vice President at BrainCo. She joined the company in 2020 and runs strategic partnerships and external relations. She was named to Fortune China’s 2024 Most Powerful Women Future List. Her surname is 何 (He), a Chinese surname romanised as “He,” not the English pronoun. She is female; her pronouns are she and her.

Her recent public appearances have been the vehicle through which BrainCo has positioned itself for the Hong Kong public-market process. Her HSBC Global Investment Summit appearance in April 2026 in Hong Kong was covered by the South China Morning Post and framed BrainCo’s non-invasive product line against Neuralink’s invasive positioning. Her CNBC video interview on 10 July 2026 continues that positioning, this time in front of a US financial media audience.

What BrainCo actually is

BrainCo, Inc. (Chinese operating entity: 浙江强脑科技有限公司, Zhejiang Qiangnao Technology Co., Ltd.) was founded in 2015 in Somerville, Massachusetts by Han Bicheng (韩璧丞) while Han was a PhD candidate at Harvard’s Center for Brain Science. Han paused his doctoral studies in 2020 to focus on the company full time and remains the company’s Founder and CEO. The company was incubated at Harvard Innovation Labs. Its legal and operational headquarters moved to Hangzhou, Zhejiang, in 2018. The Zhejiang Qiangnao corporate entity was registered on 21 December 2018. BrainCo retains a United States office in Somerville, Massachusetts, and opened an Asia-Pacific headquarters and research and development centre at Hong Kong Cyberport on 28 September 2025.

BrainCo’s product portfolio is entirely non-invasive. The BrainRobotics bionic prosthetic hand received United States Food and Drug Administration clearance on 7 November 2022, and the company markets it as one of the few non-invasive BCI products with FDA clearance. The Focus 1 EEG attention headband launched in 2016 and is BrainCo’s original product line. Additional wearables include FocusCalm, Easleep (released November 2022), and OxyZen (released October 2024). None of the BrainCo products cross into invasive intracortical or endovascular BCI territory. The non-invasive positioning is the company’s central commercial and regulatory posture.

The January 2026 round and the HK IPO run-up

On 8 January 2026, per Shanghai Securities News (Yicai Global reporting), BrainCo announced the close of a ¥2 billion (~US$286 million) financing round co-led by IDG Capital and Walden International (Lip-Bu Tan’s US-Asia crossover venture firm), with strategic investors including Lens Technology and OmniVision. Yicai framed the round as the largest brain-computer interface financing globally outside Neuralink. Inside BCI is treating the round-label question (Series A, Series B, Series B+, or unlabelled follow-on) as unresolved because the primary Chinese-language reporting did not disclose a specific letter label; the amount, lead investors, and strategic investors are the load-bearing verified specifics.

On 12 January 2026, Bloomberg reported that BrainCo had confidentially filed for a Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing with China International Capital Corporation (CICC) and UBS Group AG as arrangers. The offering size was still under discussion at time of filing with a target of “several hundred million dollars.” An August 2025 Bloomberg report had earlier framed BrainCo as seeking pre-IPO funds at a US$1.3 billion valuation, which is the pre-IPO figure that has been widely cited in adjacent reporting. Inside BCI is treating the US$1.3 billion valuation as tied to August 2025 pre-IPO talks specifically, not to the closed January 2026 round which did not disclose a post-money valuation.

BrainCo is one of the “Hangzhou Six Little Dragons” (杭州六小龙), a Chinese tech-media framing popularised in early 2025 that groups six Hangzhou-headquartered technology companies: DeepSeek, Unitree Robotics, Game Science, DEEP Robotics, BrainCo, and Manycore Tech. Manycore Tech completed its Hong Kong initial public offering on 17 April 2026, which means BrainCo is not on track to be the first of the Hangzhou Six to trade publicly. That framing, which was accurate at time of BrainCo’s January confidential filing, is stale as of publication. BrainCo would be the second of the Hangzhou Six to reach public markets if its listing completes.

Where CNBC’s interview sits in the industrial-builder posture

The industrial-builder regulatory posture that Inside BCI has identified as China’s frame is a policy structure that emphasises attracting enterprises, capital, and talent through industrial policy anchors rather than restricting BCI development through neurorights or state-patchwork data legislation. Under that frame, Chinese BCI companies pursuing US institutional investor attention through Hong Kong public market listings become the specific commercial bridge between the industrial-builder posture and the global capital allocation process.

CNBC is the US business media channel that C-suite institutional investors and treasury officers watch for signals about which Chinese technology companies are institutionally investable through Hong Kong-denominated equity. The specific 10 July 2026 video is not itself an announcement of new BrainCo news. It is a positioning event, executed six months after the confidential filing, that increases US institutional investor familiarity with BrainCo ahead of the eventual Hong Kong prospectus and roadshow. That is the story that Inside BCI is naming: US business television running Chinese non-invasive BCI leadership profiles during Hong Kong IPO run-ups is a specific new distribution pattern of the industrial-builder posture, and BrainCo is the first named Chinese BCI subject of that pattern.

Reputational context that Inside BCI is naming

In September 2025, a Hunterbrook Media and Pablo Torre Finds Out investigation alleged that BrainCo had ties to Chinese government use of athlete brainwave data, specifically referencing Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc and tennis player Jannik Sinner. The allegations were subsequently picked up by additional US and international sports and general-news outlets. Inside BCI has not verified the specific factual claims in the Hunterbrook investigation against primary sources, but the investigation is a matter of public record that any US institutional investor conducting BrainCo due diligence would encounter during the Hong Kong IPO roadshow process. The investigation is a live reputational input to any BrainCo commercial coverage and is named here for completeness.

Separately, Chinese school-headband trials involving BrainCo’s Focus 1 product were halted in November 2019 following parent privacy concerns. That episode is well-documented in international press coverage from that period. It is not a current commercial issue but is part of BrainCo’s public record.

What to watch

The first signal is BrainCo’s Hong Kong Stock Exchange Post-Hearing Information Pack (PHIP). When BrainCo’s HKEX filing moves from confidential to public, the PHIP will disclose the offering size, the price range, the specific product-line revenue breakdown, the customer concentration, and the risk factors including any regulatory scrutiny disclosure. That is when the confidential-filing story converts to a public-markets story.

The second signal is the identity of the cornerstone investors in BrainCo’s Hong Kong offering. Cornerstone investor identity in Hong Kong IPOs is disclosed in the PHIP and is a specific signal about how BrainCo has positioned itself between US institutional investors, Hong Kong institutional investors, and Chinese state-affiliated capital.

The third signal is US regulatory response to BrainCo’s public-markets ambition. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and Department of Commerce Entity List activity around Chinese BCI companies has been limited to date, but BrainCo’s specific dual-jurisdiction structure (Somerville MA US office, Hangzhou HQ, FDA-cleared BrainRobotics prosthetic hand) creates surface area for US-side regulatory attention that other Chinese BCI companies (Neuracle on STAR Market, NeuroXess Zhejiang, StairMed Shanghai) do not carry.

The fourth signal is which other Chinese BCI companies pursue Hong Kong or STAR Market public-market paths in the coming quarters. Neuracle’s STAR Market IPO prospectus was accepted on 11 June 2026. BrainCo confidentially filed on 12 January 2026 in Hong Kong. Whether NeuroXess, StairMed, NeuCyber, or others follow, and which exchange each selects, will indicate the geographic distribution of Chinese BCI public-market capital access.

Sources

market BrainCo Nyx-He Han-Bicheng CNBC Elaine-Yu Hong-Kong-IPO Hangzhou-Six-Little-Dragons non-invasive-BCI BrainRobotics IDG-Capital Walden-International Industrial-Builder-posture China