Kandu

Formed in 2025 by the merger of Neurolutions and the stroke-care company Kandu Health. IpsiHand reads movement intention with a non-invasive EEG headset, from the hemisphere the stroke did not damage, and opens and closes a powered brace worn on the affected hand.

Interface category

Electroencephalography

Signal

Summed field potentials, blurred and attenuated by skull and scalp

Invasiveness

Non-invasive

Recording / stimulation

Recording

Device

IpsiHand — EEG headset, tablet and a powered brace on the hand and wrist that opens and closes on decoded movement intention

Regulatory status

FDA De Novo marketing authorisation (2021), by prescription

Main use cases

Restore, Move

Shown in people

FDA De Novo authorisation in 2021, and a completed at-home study with 109 participants.

Still an aim

Reimbursed home therapy at scale, through a Medicare billing code and a telehealth service.

What stands in the way

Adoption: whether clinicians prescribe it and payers cover it.

On record here: 0 peer-reviewed papers

• Apr 2021US FDA — De Novo marketing authorisation. A non-invasive EEG system for upper-extremity rehabilitation in chronic stroke, by prescription. Granted to Neurolutions, now part of Kandu.

IpsiHand answers a question that implant coverage tends to skip: which BCI did a regulator authorise first? As far as we can establish it was this one, in 2021, non-invasive and for rehabilitation, five years before the first implanted system was registered in China. Washington University, where the technology was developed, calls it the first FDA-authorised BCI for rehabilitation. The device does not restore a lost channel of communication. It uses the BCI as a training signal, on the theory that pairing the intention to move with the movement helps the brain relearn it. The merger with a telehealth company and a Medicare billing code are a test of whether a BCI therapy can be delivered and paid for at home, which every later product will have to pass too.

1. 12 Sep 2025

   A study of fully remote, at-home use of IpsiHand reaches primary completion with 109 participants.

   Clinical registryClinicalTrials.gov

2. 8 Apr 2025

   Neurolutions and Kandu Health merge to form Kandu, with the first close of a $30M financing co-led by Ally Bridge Group and AMED Ventures.

   Independent reportingHealthcare Dive

3. Apr 2021

   FDA grants De Novo marketing authorisation for the IpsiHand Upper Extremity Rehabilitation System.

   Independent reportingIpsiHand authorised through De Novo

4. 2007

   Neurolutions is founded by Eric Leuthardt and Daniel Moran to commercialise BCI research at Washington University in St. Louis.

   Company reportedWashington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

• 8 Apr 2025$30MFinancing with merger · led by Ally Bridge Group, AMED VenturesAnnounced with the merger of Neurolutions and Kandu Health as the first close of a $30M round.Independent reporting

Investors namedAlly Bridge Group · AMED Ventures

Rounds in the Briefing’s sample only; not a complete funding history.

• Kirsten Carroll

  Chief executive of Kandu Health at the merger

As publicly stated by the organisation. Not a complete list.

• EEGApproved / cleared

  g.tec medical engineering

  An Austrian maker of complete BCI systems and of the amplifiers much of the field's research is recorded with, in business since 1999.

• sEMGNon-medical

  BrainCo

  Non-invasive neural interfaces sold as products: bionic limbs and EEG wearables.

• ECoGFirst-in-human

  CorTec

  A fully implanted closed-loop system that both records from and stimulates the cortical surface.