Shanghai's Lingang Lab spin-off now has about RMB800 million to take its Tianshu implant into clinical trials, and investors say electrode durability and patient results will decide the sector's reach.
Active Technology (主动科技), a Shanghai developer of implanted brain-computer interfaces that was founded only in February, has raised RMB464 million in an angel-plus round, the venture news site PEdaily reported on November 4. Gaorong Ventures, the Shanghai Guotou Xiandao Fund (上海国投先导基金) and Shanghai Sci-Tech Venture Capital (上海科创投) led the round jointly. Jiemian listed the same three leads and eight follow-on investors, among them Guotai Haitong, Pudong Venture Capital (浦东创投) and Yunqi Partners, while earlier backers Daotong Investment, Huada Songhe and Inno Angel Fund added to their stakes.
The new money comes three months after an RMB330 million angel round announced on August 3, which TechNode described at the time as a record for angel financing in China’s brain-computer interface sector. PEdaily put the combined total of the two rounds at about RMB800 million. Citing publicly disclosed financing data, it said the new round sets a domestic record for an angel-plus round in the sector, and that the two together set one for a series of angel rounds.
The company was incubated by Shanghai’s Lingang Lab (临港实验室) and works on invasive systems, meaning devices implanted in the brain rather than worn on the head. Neither November report gave a valuation, patient numbers or the names of hospitals running trials, so the size of the bet is clearer than the stage the product has reached.
A 1024-channel implant anchors three product lines
Active Technology is building motor, visual and emotion-related brain-computer interfaces, according to PEdaily. Only the motor product has a public name: Tianshu (天枢), aimed at people who have lost movement or speech after a stroke, a spinal cord injury or ALS. The core team’s 1024-channel invasive system received a type inspection report in November 2025, the accredited design test that precedes clinical work, which places that milestone before the company itself was registered.
When the August round closed, Zhidx called Tianshu the first 1024-channel invasive system in China to pass type testing and said its channel count was comparable to Neuralink’s current product. Chief executive Wu Guojia told the outlet then that Tianshu was about to begin clinical trials. Zhidx reported that Wu previously served as executive director and vice president at the medical device maker 心通医疗, and that chief technology officer Jia Jing led the brain-computer interface clinical team in Lingang Lab’s brain technology and engineering research department.
The company says it designs the whole stack in-house: flexible electrodes, dedicated chips, algorithms and system integration. Shanghai Sci-Tech Venture Capital’s project lead, quoted by PEdaily, singled out the encoding and decoding algorithms that translate neural signals into commands as one of those self-developed layers.
Investors are paying for electrodes, algorithms and clinical proof
The lead investors were specific about what has to work. The project lead at the Guotou Xiandao fund named three tests that will decide how large the sector can become: "电极能否长期稳定工作、算法能否在真实运动场景中跑通、临床能否交出让人信服的功能性改善" (whether electrodes work stably over the long term, whether algorithms run in real movement settings, and whether clinical trials show convincing functional improvement). None of those, the investor added, can be solved by investor enthusiasm; they take a team willing to tackle hard problems year after year.
Gaorong’s project lead said the attraction was a team that combines a grounding in neuroscience with experience developing and running a medical device business. The AI link in the company’s plans is mostly prospective. Wu said Active Technology would "逐步探索与人工智能、具身智能的结合", gradually exploring how to combine its work with AI and embodied AI, while treating medical need as the starting point and the test of the technology’s value.
Gaorong Ventures led or co-led two Chinese brain-computer interface rounds worth a combined RMB964 million in the space of two days. On November 3, TechNode reported that the firm led an RMB500 million Series C+ round for Nanochap, a Hangzhou developer whose 320-channel retinal interface is in clinical trials with three participants implanted and whose 1,280-channel visual-cortex interface is still in development. The two deals stand out against a cooler market for robotics startups, where embodied AI investors pulled back as deal flow halved.
Clinical trials and a larger Shanghai base come next
PEdaily said the new round will fund research, clinical translation and industrial build-out, and open the way to industry partnerships. In August, Zhidx reported that the company had already built a 2,500-square-meter site combining offices and a GMP production workshop, and planned a headquarters of more than 10,000 square meters by the end of 2026, including a micro- and nano-fabrication platform.
Wu described the long-term aim as a technology platform that can support several kinds of application and keep improving, with stage goals set for each of the three product lines and careful validation and engineering. The company has disclosed no trial dates or product names for the visual and emotional lines.
The milestone that would test the investors’ case is the first Tianshu implant in a registered clinical trial, with the hospital, patient group and channel count disclosed. Whether Active Technology reports functional results from that trial before it returns for a Series A will show how far RMB800 million in angel money has carried the 1024-channel system.