Westlake Neuralicorn (Neuralicorn) has recently completed a multi-million RMB Angel+ funding round. The round was jointly led by HArmony Capital, E Fund Capital, Qizhen Fund, and Nanjing innovation Investment Group. The newly acquired capital will be dedicated to accelerating the industrialization of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) chips and Chinese Language Decoding technologies, facilitating the transition of key technological achievements into prACTical APPlication scenarios.
Throughout the progression of human civilization, every technological revolution has profoundly transformed how humans interact with the world. From spoken language and written text to the printing press, telegraph, internet, and modern Artificial Intelligence, humanity has continuously invented new tools to overcome the limitations of Information transmission. Nevertheless, humans still largely rely on biological sensory and expressive systems to exchange information with the external environment. Speaking requires the oral and phonetic systems, writing depends on manual dexterity, and operating digital devices necessitates keyboards, mice, and touchscreens. For a human brAIn possessing tens of billions of neurons, these biological channels have relatively limited bandwidth and transmission efficiency. The emergence of BCI offers the potential to establish a novel paradigm for human-world interaction. Fundamentally, the profound significance of BCI extends beyond merely enabling humans to control external devices; it aims to bypass the low-bandwidth biological interface, allowing the brain to connect directly with the world and fully unleash human cognitive and communicative potential.
Westlake Neuralicorn is committed to turning this vision into reality and reshaping human-world information interaction. Incubated by Westlake University, the company focuses on the R&D of BCI chips, systems, and Intelligent decoding technologies, striving to build an autonomous and controllable BCI infrastructure. Following this funding round, the company will further increase R&D investments in BCI chips, implantable systems, Chinese language Neural Prosthetics, and BCI intelligent interaction technologies. This will accelerate key technological breakthroughs and industrialization, driving BCI Technology from medical applications toward broader human-machine collaborative scenarios.
Conquering "Brain-Computer Chips" to Solidify BCI Infrastructure
In today's rapidly expanding BCI industry, scenarios once confined to science fiction are gradually becoming reality: humans can control video games via thought, drive robotic arms to grasp objects, enable paralyzed patients to Stand, and help aphASIc patients speak again. Behind these remarkable achievements lies the "brain-computer chip," a millimeter-sized device implanted within the skull that serves as the true backbone of BCI systems. As the central nervous system of BCI, this chip handles critical tasks including neural signal acquisition, processing, transmission, and closed-loop regulation. The chip dictates the quality of neural information the system can obtain and ultimately determines the upper limits of future BCI capabilities. Just as CPUs DeFined the PC era, mobile SoCs defined the smartphone era, and GPUs pRoPElled the AI era, "brain-computer chips" will become one of the most critical infrastructures of the BCI era.
Historically, the heavy reliance on imported high-performance BCI chips has been a major bottleneck restricting the development of China's BCI industry. Facing this challenge, Westlake Neuralicorn has chosen a difficult but highly valuable long-term path. Since its inception, the company has prioritized BCI chips as its core focus, insisting on penetrating the foundational technologies at the bottom of the industrial chain. The company's independently developed high-throughput BCI chips target core scenarios such as neural signal acquisition, preprocessing, and closed-loop regulation. Currently, Westlake Neuralicorn has established comprehensive R&D capabilities spanning chip design, system integration, and Algorithm Development, while strategically deploying core chip products across BCI, neuromodulation, and in vitro stimulation.
Deploying "Chinese Language Neural Prosthetics" to Open New Interaction Channels
LeverAGIng its autonomous and controllable BCI chip anD system R&D capabilities, Westlake Neuralicorn has targeted Chinese language neural prosthetics as its primary application breakthrough, taking the lead in the highly challenging global BCI track of Chinese language decoding. In recent years, major breakthroughs in Invasive BCI language decoding have predominantly been built upon English-language Frameworks. However, Chinese is a highly complex tonal language where the Same syllable can cARRy entirely different meanings depending on the tone. Furthermore, the abundance of homophones makes semantic understanding heavily context-dependent. Consequently, language decoding models designed for English cannot be directly transferred to Chinese application scenarios. Addressing this challenge, Westlake Neuralicorn has made long-term strategic deployments ranging from Chinese corpus construction and neural signal acquisition to codec model training. The company has established an independent Chinese language neural prosthetic technology system and successfully completed technical validation for real-time Chinese language decoding.
In 2025, the company's "Implantable brain-computer interface System Based on Real-Time Chinese Language Decoding" was successfully selected for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's (MIIT) AI Medical Device "Unveiling the List" (Jiebang Guashuai) project. For patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), stroke, and aphasia, language neural prosthetics offer the hope of regaining the ability to communicate with the outside world. For Westlake Neuralicorn, the significance of this technology extends far beyond language function reconstruction and medical rehabilitation; it represents a crucial step toward higher-level information interaction in BCI.
Language is a vital vehicle for expressing thoughts, but it is not thought itself. During the thinking process, humans first form concepts, intentions, and cognitive states, with language serving as the organized and encoded expression of this information. In this sense, language neural prosthetics are not the endpoint but rather a vital starting point for understanding and connecting with the brain's information activities. Looking ahead, Westlake Neuralicorn's technological layout focuses not only on language decoding itself but also on exploring richer mechanisms of brain information expression,推动ing BCI from medical rehabilitation toward broader human-machine intelligent interaction scenarios.
Founding Team: BCI Will Redefine Human-World Connectivity
Dr. Cao Lu and Dr. Yang Jie, the founders of Westlake Neuralicorn, stated: "Many people believe BCI is about helping patients restore lost abilities, but in our view, this is just the beginning. The true value of BCI is not merely repairing a lost capability, but releasing inherently restricted human potential."
Dr. Cao Lu has been extensively engaged in the interSECtion of BCI and AI for a long time and is among the earliest scholars in China to conduct research on invasive Chinese language decoding. Since 2017, his team has continuously conducted research on Chinese language decoding, completing validations for multiple key technological milestones. According to Dr. Cao Lu, language neural prosthetics are only the first step in BCI development. In the future, human-machine interaction will no longer rely on keyboards and screens, and human-to-human information transfer will transcend the limitations of spoken language itself.
Investor perspectives
Harmony Capital: "Relying on solid accumulations in brain-language decoding, implantable Neural Chips, microsystems, and algorithms, the Westlake Neuralicorn team has formed a closed loop integrating underlying hardware, algorithmic capabilities, CLInical demands, and engineering delivery. This makes them a startup with genuine long-term value in the BCI sector. Throughout our communications, the team dEMOnstrated a clear path and strong execution capability in transitioning from scientific research to clinical translation and industrial implementation. We look forward to the company continuously advancing original Chinese BCI technologies and providing new solutions for major clinical needs such as language dysfunction."
E Fund Capital: "Westlake Neuralicorn has simultaneously built two core competitive advantages—underlying hardware self-reliance and Chinese brain-language decoding—forming an ecological moat. On the hardware front, the team has deeply cultivated implantable neural chips, completed multiple rounds of technological iteration, and mastered the entire independent R&D chain from chip design and tape-out to complete system integration, breaking foreign dependence on core components and securing an autonomous industrial foundation. In language decoding, the company leveRAGes the unique tonal and semantic characteristics of Chinese to achieve full-chain independent R&D of corpora and codec models, establishing a proprietary Chinese language neural prosthetic technology system. This攻克es global frontier challenges and has received support from the MIIT's 'Unveiling the List' project, aligning perfectly with national strategic deployments and precisely addressing the clinical needs of domestic populations with language dysfunction. This dual core advantage of integrated software and hardware endows the company with technological originality, localized barriers, and industrial implementation capabilities, giving it ouTSTanding long-term development potential in the clinical translation and industrialization wave of the BCI industry."
Qizhen Fund: "As a technology transfer fund affiliated with Zhejiang University, we have long focused on the BCI track, which possesses both cutting-edge frontiers and deep industrial dimensions. The scarcity of Westlake Neuralicorn lies in its complete chain control capability. In the BCI industry, few teams are truly at the forefront of chip self-reliance. Westlake Neuralicorn has deployed multiple chip product lines for different target application markets (including DS chips and invasive BCI chips with varying channel counts) and possesses complete chip design and tape-out capabilities. Simultaneously, the company has established its own indications on the clinical end, achieving a dual-pronged approach of 'Chips + Applications.' We believe that as the BCI industry enters a critical window for engineering and clinical translation, teams possessing both underlying component capabilities and application closed-loop capabilities will become truly scarce assets in the industrial chain. On one hand, they can use chips as a foundation to supply other players in the chain and lower overall industry R&D thresholds; on the other hand, they can use chips as a core to independently deliver complete BCI products. This dual-track capability combination of 'B2B Supply + C2C Complete Machines' will grant the company higher developmental elasticity when the industry scales in the future."
Nanjing Innovation Investment Group: "Chinese BCI language decoding is a core global issue that has not yet been systematically conquered. Grounded in the essential characteristics of Chinese as a tonal language, Westlake Neuralicorn has achieved full-chain independent R&D from corpus construction to codec models, establishing a localized foothold in this international frontier direction. This technological path highly aligns with the key research deployments regarding Chinese BCI corpus databases in China's upcoming '15th Five-Year Plan,' forming a significant and hard-to-replicate localized moat at the foundational level. Decoding paradigms for English and other Alphabetic languages cannot be directly transferred; the semantic structure and tonal characteristics of Chinese inherently require an independent technological foundation and data system. Westlake Neuralicorn's layout is not only a proactive response to national strategic directions but also a pragmatic choice based on real clinical needs, serving tens of millions of domestic indiViduals with language dysfunction. We believe the path Westlake Neuralicorn has chosen combines technological originality, policy synergy, and clinical translation value, making it an innovative enterprise worthy of long-term companionship and deep support."
Capital Sci-Tech Development Group: "Currently, BCI is at a critical window transitioning from laboratories to clinical validation and industrial implementation. Companies with genuine long-term value can neither rely on imported core components long-term nor simply copy foreign technological routes. The commendable aspect of Westlake Neuralicorn is that it has penetrated the 'choke point' of chips downwards while aiming upwards at Chinese BCI language neural prosthetics—a major application direction with a natural localized moat. The superposition of these dual layouts constitutes an irreplicable core competitiveness. Capital Sci-Tech Development Group is dedicated to supporting frontier sci-tech projects with originality and strategic value. Westlake Neuralicorn's dual layout in key technology autonomy and localized applications highly aligns with our investment philosophy, making it a benchmark investment for us. We look forward to Westlake Neuralicorn achieving continuous new breakthroughs in clinical translation and industrial implementation, contributing genuine Chinese solutions to the high-quality development of China's BCI industry."
About Westlake Neuralicorn
Westlake Neuralicorn (Neuralicorn), incubated by Westlake UniveRSIty, focuses on the R&D of underlying BCI technologies. Based on autonomous BCI chips, the company has built a full-stack technology system covering chips, systems, algorithms, and applications. It is dedicated to breaking through the bandwidth limitations of traditional biological information interaction, enabling more direct and efficient connections between the brain and the digital world. The company aims to release human cognitive and creative potential, providing core technological support for neurological disease treatment, next-generation human-machine interaction, and human intelligence enhancement.
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