Nansu Tech Secures Tens of Millions in Series A Funding and Obtains China's First Digital Therapeutic Registration Certificate for Language Disorders

VCBeat recently learned that Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd. has completed a Series A financing round worth tens of millions of yuan, with Shulan Junjie Capital as the sole investor.

The funds raised in this round will be primarily used to advance the industrialization of digital therapeutics for brain function disorders and the registration of medical devices; accelerate the research and development of technologies and products related to digital therapeutics for brain function; and promote the clinical adoption of these products in the domestic market.

Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd. was founded in 2019. Its founding team members all come from the R&D departments of leading technology and healthcare companies, possessing many years of experience in product development, technology, and clinical rehabilitation. The company has established long-term R&D collaborations with numerous research institutes both in China and abroad, and has incubated a series of digital therapeutics brands and products, including “Xiao Nan Ting Shuo” and “Xiao Nan Zhi Xing.”

In November 2022, Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd. obtained the registration certificate for a digital therapeutic for language disorders, becoming the first company in China to possess this leading technology and gain medical device market access. The product is indicated for speech and language rehabilitation training in patients with speech-language disorders and cognitive impairments.

Language disorders are functional impairments in language development or use, affecting not only adults and the elderly but also children, particularly infants and toddlers who are in the early stages of language acquisition. These disorders can be broadly categorized into developmental language delay, articulation disorders, aphasia, hearing-related language disorders, and stuttering. Professional rehabilitation training can alleviate and improve these conditions. Infants and toddlers affected by language disorders who receive early intervention can mostly achieve normal language communication abilities.

An article published in the UK’s Journal of Public Health in 2021 noted that the prevalence of language disorders among preschool children ranged from 2% to 25%, compared with 2% to 19% reported in a 2014 paper, indicating an increasing detection rate of language disorders in the preschool age group.

According to data from the Second National Sample Survey on Disability (2014), the prevalence of language disorders among children and adolescents in China is as follows: 17% at age 2, 4–7.5% at age 3, 3.5–7% at age 4, and 3–6% at age 5. Based on these figures, it is conservatively estimated that several million children in China suffer from speech and language disorders. When combined with the population of adults with aphasia, the total number of individuals in China affected by various types of language disorders exceeds ten million.

Pharmacological interventions for language disorders have limited efficacy. Currently, the only available treatment is manual rehabilitation training, which faces a series of intractable challenges, including high costs, severely uneven distribution of resources, low service efficiency, and limited service reach. Consequently, a substantial portion of the rehabilitation demand in China remains unmet.

Digital therapeutics serve as a supplement and optimization to traditional therapies. Rooted in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, they benefit not only patients but also physicians, hospitals, disabled persons’ federations, and rehabilitation institutions. With the growing trend toward smart healthcare, digital therapeutics have experienced rapid development in recent years, becoming a key direction for the integration of digital and medical technologies.

Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd. has not confined itself to the product path of simply digitizing traditional rehabilitation technologies. Instead, leveraging the brain’s neuroplasticity, it achieves clinical outcomes in neural function remodeling through digital sensory stimulation, and has developed multiple digital-native innovative rehabilitation therapies.。

In January 2021, Nansu Technology launched “Xiao Nan Ting Shuo,” a digital therapeutic product for speech and language disorders. It has since been adopted by more than 300 rehabilitation medical institutions and thousands of patient families, earning strong user reputation and demonstrating notable clinical efficacy.

In November 2022, building on the successful experience with its language disorder products, Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd. launched “Xiao Nan Zhixing,” a digital therapeutic product for cognitive autism. The company plans to sequentially roll out digital therapeutic solutions for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, depression, tinnitus, and other conditions over the next three years, thereby establishing a comprehensive portfolio of digital therapeutics based on digital sensory stimulation.

Dr. Wang Ningyuan, Founder and CEO of Nansu TechnologyStatement: Since its inception, Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd. has been committed to addressing rehabilitation challenges for individuals with brain function impairments through digital solutions. Currently, the company primarily focuses on indications related to speech and language disorders as well as cognitive impairments, and has incubated multiple digital therapeutics and digital rehabilitation service brands, including XiaoNan TingShuo, XiaoNan ZhiXing, and BrainHeal. Based on our understanding and judgment of the industry, we firmly believe that digital therapeutics will emerge as a third category of treatment—alongside pharmaceuticals and medical devices—in specific fields, generating substantial social and commercial value. We extend our sincere gratitude to Mr. Xu and the Shulan Junjie team for their recognition of our work, as well as to existing shareholders such as Plum Ventures and Taiyou Fund for their continued support. Obtaining the registration certificate is merely the beginning. Nansu Technology will remain focused on product development and technological innovation, guided by clinical efficacy and user experience, to steadily advance each step of our commercialization journey.

Shulan Junjie CapitalFounding Partner Xu DilongIt is indicated that: First, the team at Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd. has been deeply engaged in artificial intelligence and brain science for many years, possessing over a decade of experience in developing research products related to cognition and brain science, along with mature market channel resources. Second, Nansu’s focus on speech and language disorders and cognitive disorders addresses a market comprising tens of millions of individuals. The annual incidence rate among children remains at 4%–6%. This population demonstrates strong potential payment capacity and high willingness to pay, supported by robust policy incentives, making it an emerging healthcare sector valued at hundreds of billions of yuan. Finally, based on evidence-based medicine, Nansu Technology has developed hundreds of digital therapeutic rehabilitation modules rooted in psychophysics and cognitive neuroscience. These modules can be combined to create nearly a thousand typical digital prescriptions, establishing significant technological and clinical barriers. Having undergone clinical validation and market verification, the company has achieved initial commercialization and is poised for substantial future growth.

Hangzhou Nansu Technology Co., Ltd., established in 2019, is a technology-driven company dedicated to the research and development of digital therapeutic products for language disorders, cognitive impairments, and hearing impairments. Its flagship product, “Xiao Nan Ting Shuo – Intelligent Rehabilitation Assistant for Hearing and Language,” is the first digital therapeutic product for language disorders. This product has enabled home-based rehabilitation for over 2,000 pediatric patients and is now widely used in daily clinical rehabilitation practices at more than 300 professional rehabilitation institutions across China. The company’s second digital therapeutic product, “Xiao Nan Zhi Xing,” designed for individuals with autism spectrum disorder, has also been recently launched.

Shulan Junjie Capital was jointly established by early investors and the founding team of Shulan Medical, leveraging clinical resources globally to facilitate the translation of medical technologies into industrial applications. The fund focuses on three key clinical application scenarios: precision diagnostics, innovative therapies, and research services, with a specialization in early-stage investments in high-growth-potential projects within the fields of medical technology and life sciences. Since the establishment of its first fund in 2017, it has supported the rapid early-stage growth of over thirty startups in areas such as digital technology, omics, gene technology, cell technology, and biomaterials for clinical translation, with the cumulative valuation of its portfolio exceeding RMB 10 billion.