Ten patients in two hospitals (UTHealth Houston in the US and UMC Utrecht in the Netherlands) have already had a soft, stretchable electrode array placed on the surface of their cortex during epilepsy surgery without the device penetrating the brain tissue. The company behind that array, Switzerland-based Neurosoft Bioelectronics, closed a $7.5 million oversubscribed seed round on 20 May 2026 to fund US commercialisation of its first brain interface. The lead investor is Skybound Venture Capital, a new Athens-based deeptech fund that publicly launched the same week with a $38 million first close anchored by the European Investment Fund. Neurosoft is Skybound’s inaugural portfolio investment.

The round

Neurosoft raised $7.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by Skybound Venture Capital, with participation from PL Capital, IAG Capital Partners, and Connecticut Innovations. The round brings Neurosoft’s total funding raised since inception to more than $20 million. The company has not disclosed post-money valuation. Proceeds will be used to demonstrate minimally invasive deployment of the device in human patients and to push the first Neurosoft brain interface toward US commercialisation.

What Neurosoft is building

Neurosoft’s core product is a soft, stretchable cortical electrode array designed to sit on the surface of the brain without penetrating the tissue. The company describes its electrodes as up to 1,000 times more compliant than the materials used in other flexible neural interfaces, and capable of covering up to 30 times more cortex than current state-of-the-art BCIs. The platform is designed for a minimally invasive surgical procedure, which lowers the clinical-risk profile compared with intracortical penetrating arrays.

The clinical evidence base is now ten patients across two ongoing trials, including a first-of-its-kind 64-channel soft, stretchable brain interface study for epilepsy surgery guidance. The study is being run jointly at UTHealth Houston (US) and UMC Utrecht (Netherlands). The use-case is intraoperative: during epilepsy resection surgery, the array maps cortical activity to help surgeons identify the regions to remove and the regions to spare. The same architecture is positioned for downstream chronic implantation in BCI indications.

Skybound and the European public-capital BCI thread

Skybound Venture Capital announced its public launch on the same week as the Neurosoft round, with a $38 million oversubscribed first close and a mandate focused on European pre-seed and seed-stage deeptech. The fund writes initial cheques of $500,000 to $2 million and is anchored by the European Investment Fund via the EIF’s Equifund II programme. Skybound was founded by Thaleia Misailidou (previously of Marathon Venture Capital, an established Greek deeptech investor) and George Varvarelis (co-founder of Augmenta, which was acquired by CNH Industrial). Neurosoft is the fund’s first portfolio investment.

The Skybound launch extends a pattern of European public-sector capital being deployed into BCI and bioelectronic medicine. Spain’s CDTI-Innvierte and Fond ICO Next Tech, Belgium’s imec.xpand, and Catalonia’s Avançsa all participated in INBRAIN Neuroelectronics’s $50 million Series B in October 2024, building the densest European public-capital footprint of any BCI company in the world (covered in Inside BCI’s 8 May sovereign capital piece). The Skybound launch adds an EIF-anchored Athens-based deeptech fund to the same picture, with BCI as its proof-of-thesis bet.

What to watch

The first signal is Neurosoft’s progress toward minimally invasive deployment in chronic-implantation indications, not just intraoperative epilepsy mapping. The 64-channel epilepsy-surgery study is the clinical wedge; whether the company can extend its architecture to a permanent implant pathway will determine whether Neurosoft becomes a true BCI competitor or remains a surgical-mapping specialist. The second signal is Skybound’s follow-on portfolio construction. As an EIF-anchored fund with BCI as its first cheque, where it deploys cheques two through ten will indicate whether the European deeptech-capital pattern continues to lean into neurotechnology or rebalances toward other deeptech categories.

Sources

• Neurosoft Bioelectronics Closes $7.5M Oversubscribed Seed Round (BusinessWire, 20 May 2026)
• Neurosoft Bioelectronics closes $7.5M seed funding round (MassDevice)
• Swiss neurotech startup Neurosoft raises $7.5M (Tech Startups)
• Neurosoft Bioelectronics raises $7.5m to progress BCI development (Medical Device Network)
• Skybound launches with $38M to back early deeptech founders (Tech.eu, 20 May 2026)
• Skybound Venture Capital (company website)