This Chinese Startup Wants to Read and Stimulate Your Brain Without Surgery

Most brain-computer interface companies today require opening the skull. Neuralink implants electrodes directly into brain tissue. OpenAI-backed Merge Labs is developing its own invasive system. The surgical requirement is one of the biggest reasons BCI technology remains limited to a handful of patients worldwide, despite decades of research.

Gestala, a three-month-old Chinese startup founded by serial entrepreneur Phoenix Peng, is betting that ultrasound can change that entirely.

The company is developing a non-invasive BCI system that uses phased-array ultrasound to both read brain activity and precisely stimulate or suppress specific neural circuits, all from outside the skull. Unlike implanted electrodes, which can only monitor a localised cluster of neurons around the implant site, ultrasound can monitor a much larger portion of the brain including deep neural structures that electrode-based systems cannot easily reach. The technology requires no surgery, no recovery period, and carries none of the infection or rejection risks associated with permanent implants.

Peng, who also founded NeuroXess, a separate company working on implantable BCI systems, told TechCrunch he believes ultrasound represents the next generation of brain-computer interface technology. The key insight is that ultrasound waves can penetrate the skull non-destructively, reach deep brain regions, and be steered electronically using phased arrays to target specific areas with high precision. This means a single external device could potentially access the whole brain rather than just the narrow region around an implanted electrode.

The startup’s most immediate medical application is chronic pain management, a condition affecting hundreds of millions of people globally. Peng says existing academic research has demonstrated that focused ultrasound stimulation can significantly reduce pain levels. Beyond pain, Gestala is studying applications in depression, PTSD, autism, OCD, and stroke rehabilitation. Longer-term targets include Alzheimer’s disease, essential tremor, and Parkinson’s, though most of these remain at the early research stage rather than in clinical trials.

Gestala is also building what it calls an “Ultrasound Brain Bank,” a large clinical dataset created in partnership with major Chinese hospitals, designed to train AI models to decode brain signals and support future neurological diagnostics. The company says it can run clinical trials in China at roughly 20-33% of the cost of comparable studies in the US or Europe, giving it a speed and scale advantage over international competitors.

Gestala is the first ultrasound-based BCI company in China, though several similar startups have emerged in the United States in recent years. The company aims to complete its first-generation prototype by the end of 2026 and is expanding its team from 15 to around 35 employees.

The startup recently raised $21.6 million in its first funding round, co-led by Guosheng Capital and Dalton Venture with participation from Gobi Ventures and others, at a valuation of $100 to $200 million. The round was heavily oversubscribed, with investor commitments exceeding $58 million, making it the largest early-stage BCI funding deal in China to date.

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