Author | Cui Yuanwei Editor | Chen Junda
Xindongxi reported on November 3 that Hangzhou-based neuro-biochip company Nanochap announced the completion of a CNY 500 million Series C+ funding round. According to Nanochap , this is the second funding round secured by the company this year, bringing its cumulative financing scale to CNY 1 billion. This round was led by Gaorong Venture Capital, with follow-on investments from PICC Equity, Monolith LiSi Capital, Jianfa Emerging Investment, Dongfang Jiafu, Danhe Capital, and Hangzhou Industrial Investment Group. Existing shareholders such as Legend Capital and well-known industrial investment institutions oversubscribed their commitments. Qifeng Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round.
Founded in February 2014 and headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Nanochap is a technology enterprise specializing in the R&D, production, and sales of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) and neuro-biochips. It is one of the earliest domestic companies engaged in visual BCI technology development. In 2024, the company was recognized as a national-level "Little Giant" specialized and innovative SME. Currently, Nanochap has built a full-chain technology platform spanning from core integrated circuits to system algorithms. The founder and CEO, Yang Jiawei, holds a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He previously served as a researcher at the University of Melbourne's Neuroengineering Centre, dedicating 11 years to artificial retina R&D, and possesses over 20 years of experience in cutting-edge BCI and biochip development. According to Nanochap's official WeChat account, Yang and his team launched the world's highest-resolution 320-channel retinal chip, achieving wireless connectivity with high-density microelectrode arrays. Nanochap states that this product can restore functional vision for blind individuals in a true sense.
According to the corporate information platform Qichacha, Nanochap has completed multiple funding rounds since its inception. In December 2023 and June 2022, the company completed two tranches of Series B+ financing, with investors including Taiyue Capital and Fengnian Capital. In September 2021, it closed a Series B round exceeding CNY 100 million, led by Taiyue Capital, with follow-on investments from Zhaorui Capital, Dandelion Private Equity, and other institutions.
Nanochap's business operations are divided into two main product lines: visual BCIs and neuro-biochips. In the visual BCI sector, the company has deployed a dual-technology roadmap for visual reconstruction, launching two products: the E-BCI (retinal pathway visual BCI) and the V-BCI (visual cortex pathway BCI). These two products are applicable to the vast majority of blind populations, with the maximum number of signal acquisition and stimulation channels increased to 1,280. The E-BCI consists primarily of an implantable device and an external unit. By utilizing a self-developed 320-channel bidirectional stimulation and acquisition chip and 3D electrode design, the system achieves high-density neural signal acquisition and stimulation, suitable for patients with intact eyeball structures, optic nerves, and visual cortex pathways.
The V-BCI involves directly implanting flexible electrodes into the brain's visual cortex, bypassing the retina and optic nerve pathways to directly stimulate visual cortex neurons, thereby enabling artificial visual perception. This product is primarily intended for patients who have undergone enucleation, severe optic nerve atrophy, optic nerve rupture, or congenital absence of the optic nerve.
In terms of neuro-biochips, Nanochap offers two types of chips: the "Yuanshen" series for neural stimulation and the "Jiugan" series for biosensing. Among them, the Yuanshen ENS001 is a highly programmable stimulation SoC (System on Chip) integrating an Arm Cortex-M0 MCU, power switches, high-voltage boost converters, and multiple high-compliance stimulation drivers. It is applicable to muscle training and sports health, home and professional electrical stimulation devices, multi-channel neuromodulation, and research platforms.
The Jiugan EPC001 is a sensing chip system specifically designed for bioelectric signals. It integrates highly precise analog front-ends for EEG (Electroencephalogram), ECG (Electrocardiogram), EMG (Electromyogram), and PPG (Photoplethysmography), along with a powerful RISC-V MCU. Its RISC-V core features a 2-stage pipeline, supporting branch prediction and prefetching. Regarding storage configuration, the chip includes 256KB Flash, 64KB ROM, and 64KB RAM, making it suitable for brain activity detection, brain signal processing devices, pulse oximeters, and cuffless blood pressure measurement.
Conclusion: Visual BCI Moves from Laboratory Technology to Clinical Medical Verification
Currently, BCIs have been incorporated into China's national strategy. Visual reconstruction BCIs represent an interdisciplinary field combining neuroscience, chip manufacturing, and biomedical engineering. Through direct interaction between hardware and the nervous system, this technology provides an engineering implementation path for restoring visual function in visually impaired groups.
Nanochap initiated China's first GCP clinical trial for high-resolution retinal pathway visual BCIs and has completed trials on three patients. These actual advancements indicate that high-resolution visual BCIs have moved beyond the laboratory validation stage into real human medical verification, providing solid clinical evidence for interventions addressing visual impairments.