Alibaba leads investment, Tencent adds funds: brain-computer interface company "Jietai Medical" secures 500 million yuan in strategic financing | 36Kr exclusive

36Kr has learned that brain-machine interface company “Ladder Medical” recently secured 500 million yuan in strategic financing, led by Alibaba, with Guotou Chuanghe participating; existing shareholders Tencent, Yuanlai Capital, Aobo Capital, Yuanhe Yuan Dian, Qiming Venture Partners, Lilly Asia Fund, Source Capital, and Shanghai Guotou Xian Dao continued to follow up, with Qifeng Capital serving as the exclusive financial advisor. In the past year, Ladder Medical has accumulated a total financing of 1.1 billion yuan.

In December 2025, Ladder Medical announced the second-generation high-throughput wireless invasive brain-machine interface system (WRS02), increasing electrode channels to 256. In addition to “motion control,” application scenarios will expand to “speech reconstruction.” 36Kr previously published a detailed interview.

In early 2026, aided by self-developed surgical robots, Ladder Medical completed clinical implantation of its 256-channel brain-machine interface system and validated the effectiveness of brain-controlled interaction functions. In 2026, Ladder Medical will conduct multi-center registration clinical trials for the brain-machine interface, planning to enroll and implant approximately 40 patients within the year.

2026 may be a watershed year for brain-machine interfaces. As the technology and systems are implemented, on the payment side, in 2025, the National Healthcare Security Administration issued the “Guidelines for the Establishment of Medical Service Price Items for Nervous System Diseases (Trial),” establishing multiple services related to brain-machine interfaces as separate chargeable items, demonstrating strong support from multiple parties for the industry’s implementation.

Ladder Medical founder Zhao Zhengtu told 36Kr, “In the next three to five years, the clinical value of brain-machine interface treatments will be validated, such as improving patients’ quality of life and work ability. Over the next five to ten years, the consumer medical attributes of brain-machine interfaces will begin to emerge. It has communication properties and serves as an informational bridge for human-machine interaction, capable of transforming interaction methods and improving efficiency.”

For brain-machine interface platforms, the research and understanding of the brain in neuroscience—based on ultra-flexible neural electrodes, full-system development, and clinical trial validation—will determine the future ceiling of development.

In this process, “whoever masters more extensive brain science data will be closer to defining new application scenarios and technological pathways. When a single brain region or task accumulates large amounts of data, it can be used to train a ‘base model’ similar to large models. This base model can then be applied to new patients in the future, significantly improving their decoder and brain control performance.”

The investment by Alibaba and other major internet and tech companies in Ladder Medical, leveraging their accumulation in multimodal large models, computing infrastructure, smart hardware, and ecosystem deployment, may in the future integrate with Ladder Medical’s hardware barriers and clinical translation experience to build a “new generation of intelligent brain-machine interface systems and a rich frontier application ecosystem.”

According to reports, Ladder Medical envisioned making this technology accessible for consumer applications from the start. The reason for initially focusing on medical is because healthcare is a necessary path—it can meet many practical needs and also drive the team to continuously refine various technologies.

“During this process, we hope not only to restore patients’ motor and sensory functions but also to help them explore the boundaries of human control. Previously, we used the brain to control limbs; in the future, controlling peripherals via brain-machine interfaces—where are the boundaries? Can it surpass current human levels? I believe it definitely can,” said Ladder Medical founder Li Xue. Currently, paralyzed patients with implanted brain-machine interfaces, after training, already have certain advantages in controlling tasks like cursor speed.

In the future, linking brain-machine interfaces with rapidly developing artificial intelligence and hardware/software technologies, efficient and complex control of intelligent agents through brain signals will become possible. In Ladder Medical’s vision, “by then, through brain-machine interfaces, the brain can be integrated with various peripherals, ushering in an era of ‘human-machine fusion’ that will truly become seamless and be widely applied in thousands of households.”

Reference Reading:

Neural electrodes are 200 times thinner than a hair, “Ladder Medical” aims to develop a “Windows system” for brain-machine interfaces

Brain-machine interface company “Ladder Medical” secures hundreds of millions in Series A funding, ultra-flexible electrodes enable long-term implantation in monkeys | 36Kr Exclusive

“Ladder Medical” raises 350 million yuan in Series B funding, China’s implantable brain-machine interfaces heading toward clinical trials | 36Kr Exclusive