BrainQ: An EIC Accelerator Story of Stroke Recovery at Home

"Over 60% of patients survive to live with a meaningful disability," Stacey Pugh, the former head of Medtronic's neurovascular business, said of stroke when she became chair of BrainQ's board in January 2025, as quoted by NeuroNews International. BrainQ Technologies, a Jerusalem company that now calls itself BRAIN.Q, says a wearable device that bathes the brain in weak, low-frequency electromagnetic fields, tuned by machine learning, can help damaged networks relearn. In the European Innovation Council's October 2019 cut-off it was one of the Israeli winners of the EIC Accelerator pilot, listed with blended finance for its BQ System project. The Commission's list names BrainQ alone for the project, with no partner companies.

The grant, €2,248,727 towards a €3,212,467.14 project, was to make the device "ready for market launch in Europe", according to CORDIS. Seven years after the cut-off, BrainQ has a CE mark, an approval from Israel's Ministry of Health and a paying home programme. That programme is in Israel. No sale in an EU country has been announced.

Where BrainQ Stands Now

BrainQ is operating. Israel's company register lists it as active, with its last annual report filed for 2025, according to the Corporations Authority data published on data.gov.il. On 26 February 2026 the company opened what it called the first clinic of its kind, a home rehabilitation service in Israel sold as a monthly subscription with a minimum of six months on a doctor's prescription, Maariv reported. The company's Israeli programme site lists a launch price of ₪2,000 for set-up and ₪2,500 a month, which covers the loan of the helmet and remote supervision by a clinician. Both say the system holds an AMAR approval from the Israeli Ministry of Health. Maariv describes the service as running in "a limited pilot format". How many patients pay for it is not public.

In the United States the device is still investigational. A second pivotal trial, EMAGINE 2.0, began on 20 August 2024 with 122 patients planned and an estimated primary completion in July 2026, according to ClinicalTrials.gov; the record was last updated in January 2025 and no results have been posted. The Kessler Foundation, one of about 20 US rehabilitation sites, said in December 2024 that BrainQ was funding its part of the study with a two-year grant. A smaller University of Florida study of the third-generation device in chronic stroke, RESPARK, with BrainQ as collaborator, was still active in October 2026, according to its registry entry.

The Technology: Weak Fields, Tuned by Brainwaves

BrainQ's therapy, which it calls electromagnetic network targeting field (ENTF) therapy, uses extremely low-frequency, low-intensity electromagnetic fields. The company says it derives the frequencies from large sets of EEG recordings: the Phase 1 report on CORDIS mentions a dataset of more than 100,000 motor task files. Machine learning picks out the oscillation patterns of healthy motor networks, and the device plays those patterns back to the injured brain with the aim of supporting neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire. The device is non-invasive, runs on batteries and is controlled through a cloud-connected app, so patients can use it at home, the CORDIS report says.

The difference BrainQ claims over established options is the setting and the dose. Its CORDIS project summary and report describe the standard of care, physical therapy, as "tedious" with "limited recovery potential", and says existing solutions are "invasive, costly" and force high-risk patients to travel between care providers. BrainQ's bet is that daily, low-intensity sessions at home, combined with exercise and remote supervision, can extend recovery. The mechanism remains the company's account: the trial evidence for it is so far mixed, as the next sections show.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

BQ System ran from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021; the grant agreement was signed on 26 March 2020. It followed a €50,000 SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study, BQ-Technology, from August to November 2018, during which BrainQ said it had talked to research hospitals in Italy and Spain about clinical validation in Europe, according to the Phase 1 report. The Phase 2 objective was engineering optimisation, industrialisation and clinical validation, with spinal cord injury as the first European indication and stroke second.

The plan changed during the project. The periodic report says COVID-19 delayed the spinal cord injury pilot, that a stroke pilot was stopped at an interim analysis with results the company called "very encouraging", and that its regulatory consultants advised that these data could support a CE application for stroke and possibly spinal cord injury as a broad neurological indication. BrainQ then redesigned the device for home use. The report lists a quality management system, an agreement with a notified body for a technical file submission and audit "in 2021", a smaller battery-powered device with an Android app, and automated EEG processing tools.

1. Hardware and software ready for industrialisationDeliveredMiniaturised, battery-powered home device with an app, per the CORDIS report; later versions BQ 2.0 and the Q Therapeutic System (BQ 3.0) followed.
2. Quality system and CE filingLateQMS set up during the project; the CE mark for BQ 2.0 was announced in January 2025, three years after the project ended, per NeuroNews International and Maariv.
3. European pre-market clinical trialNot achievedNo European trial has been registered or reported; both pivotal trials ran in the United States.
4. Market launch in EuropeNot achievedNo sale, reimbursement or clinic in an EU country announced; the first paid service opened in Israel in February 2026.
5. Spinal cord injury indicationDroppedThe company now develops the therapy for stroke only; no later spinal cord injury results are public.

For a two-year grant during a pandemic, the engineering and quality work is real progress, and the CORDIS report is candid about the change of plan. But the project's stated end point, a device ready for the European market, came three years late, and the clinical work that was to validate it in Europe moved to the United States, where the FDA, not the EU, was the target.

What BrainQ Has Achieved Since the Award

The funding came in the middle of the EIC project. In February 2021 the US Food and Drug Administration granted the therapy Breakthrough Device Designation for reducing disability after stroke, reported by Practical Neurology on 12 February 2021 and announced on the company blog. A pilot of 25 patients had shown that 77% of treated patients recovered to little or no disability, the chief executive told The Times of Israel. In August 2021 BrainQ raised $40 million led by Hanaco Ventures, with Dexcel Pharma and Peregrine Ventures, taking its total to more than $50 million, according to Calcalist; MobiHealthNews put the total at $53 million. The earlier round, in May 2018, was $5.3 million, according to TechCrunch and the company's website. No later round has been announced.

The money paid for EMAGINE, a sham-controlled US pivotal trial. Its published protocol planned "at least 150 and up to 344 participants" at about 20 sites, with the change in the modified Rankin Scale of disability at 90 days as the primary endpoint and an interim analysis that could stop the trial for futility. ClinicalTrials.gov records 100 participants, enrolment from December 2021 and completion in January 2024, and no posted results. In May 2024, at the European Stroke Organisation Conference, the company said the primary endpoint had not reached statistical significance, but that treated patients were "more than twice as likely" to be free of disability at three months, with about 90% adherence and no serious device-related adverse events, as also reported by NoCamels. Why the trial stopped at 100 patients is not public.

Regulators moved anyway. In January 2025 BrainQ announced the CE mark for its BQ 2.0 system, appointed Stacey Pugh, a former head of Medtronic's neurovascular business, as board chair, and said it was enrolling EMAGINE II for FDA clearance, according to NeuroNews International. In 2024 the World Economic Forum named it a Technology Pioneer. On 13 August 2026 Israel Hayom reported that Tal Kuperstein, whose son Bar was held hostage in Gaza, had been using BRAIN.Q's helmet at home every day since late January after a stroke six years earlier, and quoted chief executive Yotam Drechsler: "the hardware still exists, but the learning model has been damaged. Our job is to retrain it."

What Cannot Be Checked

BrainQ's revenue, headcount and losses are not public, since Israeli private companies do not publish accounts. The EC list shows BQ System as a blended finance award, but BrainQ does not appear in any of the 17 pages of the EIC Fund's list of invested companies, and none of its funding announcements names the EIC as an investor, so there is no evidence that the equity part was ever invested. Whether the CE mark has led to any sale, tender or reimbursement in an EU member state could not be verified.

Why Europe Should Care

Stroke is one of Europe's largest causes of disability. The CORDIS report itself cites about 1.1 million strokes a year in the EU. The Stroke Action Plan for Europe 2018 to 2030, drawn up by the European Stroke Organisation and the Stroke Alliance for Europe, makes rehabilitation and life after stroke two of its seven domains, as the Stroke Alliance for Europe sets out. A home therapy that cut long-term disability would serve that plan and ease pressure on rehabilitation wards.

For the EIC, the case is less about strategic autonomy than about where the benefits land. The grant paid for a European regulatory route and a European launch. The regulatory route was finished, late. The launch, so far, has gone to Israel and the clinical proof to the United States.

The Verdict

BrainQ has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.