Alibaba leads investment! Tencent follows, betting on the "Chinese version of Neuralink"

【Introduction】 Ladder Medical Completes 500 Million Yuan Series C Funding

On the morning of March 13, Shanghai Ladder Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Ladder Medical”) announced the completion of a strategic financing round of 500 million yuan. This round was led by Alibaba, with Guotou Chuanghe participating; existing shareholders Tencent, Yuanlai Capital, Aobo Capital, Yuanhe Yuan Dian, Qiming Venture Partners, Lilly Asia Fund, Source Code Capital, and Shanghai Guotou Xian Dao continued to follow.

Ladder Medical founder Li Xue stated that the deep involvement of internet and tech giants is of milestone significance: “The strong alliance between both sides will jointly build a new generation of intelligent brain-machine interface systems and a rich ecosystem of cutting-edge applications. This not only supports medical innovation but also preemptively lays out the foundational capabilities for the next generation of human-computer interaction.”

“China’s Neuralink” Strives for Commercialization

Founded in 2021, Ladder Medical has been benchmarked against Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company Neuralink since its inception.

In terms of technical approach, Ladder Medical, like Neuralink, has chosen the most challenging invasive brain-machine interface technology route. Currently, Ladder Medical is the second company worldwide (after Neuralink) and the first in China to enter the clinical trial phase of invasive brain-machine interface products. Compared to Neuralink, Ladder Medical’s products are smaller and more flexible.

Regarding this, Dr. Zhao Zhengtu, researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Brain and Intelligence Excellence Center and founder of Ladder Medical, told reporters that for brain-machine interfaces, from non-invasive, semi-invasive to invasive, the technical difficulty increases step by step, and the application value also rises accordingly. “From the very beginning, Ladder Medical aimed to solve problems with the highest development difficulty and the highest application value.”

On March 11, 2025, the National Medical Insurance Bureau issued the “Guidelines for the Establishment of Medical Service Price Items for Nervous System Diseases (Trial)”, which specifically set aside a separate forward-looking project for new brain-machine interface technologies, establishing price items such as “Invasive Brain-Interface Implantation Fee,” “Invasive Brain-Interface Removal Fee,” and “Non-invasive Brain-Interface Adaptation Fee.” The pricing pathway for clinical application of brain-machine interface products is becoming clearer.

Since then, Ladder Medical has launched a sprint in commercialization and clinical implementation.

After successfully completing three clinical trials of brain-machine interfaces last year, Ladder Medical has further accelerated its clinical process this year: in early 2026, relying on the company’s independently developed surgical robot, Ladder Medical successfully completed the clinical implantation of the proposed 256-channel wireless high-throughput invasive brain-machine interface system (WRS02), and obtained effective validation of brain-controlled interaction functions.

Li Xue revealed that the company plans to conduct large-scale multi-center registration clinical trials in mid-2026, aiming to enroll and implant about 40 patients within the year. By the end of 2026, Ladder Medical’s total clinical implant cases are expected to approach or even surpass Neuralink’s current total clinical trials (about 21 cases).

Alibaba and Tencent Bet

Tianyancha shows that Ladder Medical, founded in August 2021, has completed five rounds of financing. Notably, Ladder Medical has raised over 1.1 billion yuan in the past year, making it one of the companies in the brain-machine interface field backed by Alibaba and Tencent.

According to previous reports, since the National Medical Insurance Bureau released the “Guidelines for the Establishment of Medical Service Price Items for Nervous System Diseases (Trial)” last March, a wave of investment in brain-machine interfaces has swept through China. However, most investors remain cautious about projects valued at 1 billion yuan or over 100 million USD.

For most investors, obtaining the first approval for a brain-machine interface product might be a key target. In early 2026, Ladder Medical successfully completed the clinical implantation of the proposed 256-channel wireless high-throughput invasive brain-machine interface system (WRS02), which is currently the only invasive brain-machine interface product approved to enter the National Medical Products Administration’s (NMPA) “Green Channel” for innovative medical devices (002173) in China.