EBRAINS

What EBRAINS does

EBRAINS is an international non-profit research infrastructure (AISBL under Belgian law, headquartered in Brussels) that provides open-access data, tools and services for brain research, spanning molecular and cellular scales through whole-organ modelling. Its platform is organised around six core service categories: Brain Atlases (Julich Brain Atlas plus species atlases for macaque, marmoset, rat and mouse with APIs), Medical Analytics (Platform for Human Imaging, Medical Informatics Platform, Human Intracerebral EEG Platform, Health Data Cloud), Modelling & Simulation (whole-brain to subcellular, plus neuromorphic computing on BrainScaleS-2), Data & Knowledge (Knowledge Graph with Find Data, Share Data, Live Papers), a Collaborative Platform (Collaboratory workspace), and Computing Infrastructure (pan-European HPC and neuromorphic access, including the JUPITER exascale system used for CytoNet training). The infrastructure was originally built under the EU-funded Human Brain Project (over 500 scientists across 130+ institutions) and is currently being advanced within the EBRAINS 2.0 project (January 2024 – December 2026, €37.99M Horizon-INFRA grant).

The business model is that of a publicly funded research infrastructure rather than a commercial SaaS company. EBRAINS offers its services free of charge to thousand+ registered researchers (institutional email required for full access), monetised through competitive EU framework programme grants, member-institution contributions via a National Nodes network spanning 30+ European countries, and in-kind support from named partners including the European Commission, Forschungszentrum Jülich, CEA, CNRS, Charité, ETH Zurich, UCL, Cambridge and NVIDIA. Revenue is therefore grant-concentrated, and customers are a long-tail of academic and clinical research users rather than a small set of enterprise accounts. Distribution is self-serve (iam.ebrains.eu) with regional support through the National Nodes and a High Level Support Team.

EBRAINS is governed by Joint CEOs Katrin Amunts and Philippe Vernier, holds GDPR-compliant data handling practices, and is positioning itself for the post-2026 cycle through a published 10-Year Roadmap (2026–2036), an emerging AI-native layer (CytoNet foundation model, multimodal neural microarchitecture analysis), and a growing industry engagement track alongside its academic core.

Name

EBRAINS

Legal name

EBRAINS AISBL

Website

https://ebrains.eu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

EBRAINS is a Brussels-based, EU-funded non-profit research infrastructure that provides free, open-access data, tools and services — including brain atlases, simulation platforms and the CytoNet foundation model — to academic and clinical neuroscience researchers across 30+ European countries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Neuroscience Research Infrastructure

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (54171), Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services (54169), Other Computer Related Services (541519)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373), Services-Engineering, Accounting, Research, Management (8700)

akta.pro primary industry

Scientific Data Management & Data Platforms (SDMS/Data Lakehouse for R&D) (HLAGAJAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELN) (HLAGAJAB), Electronic Data Capture (EDC) Platforms (HLACAOAA)

Keywords

• Brain research infrastructure
• Neuroscience data services
• Brain atlases software
• Computational neuroscience tools
• Medical imaging analytics

Headquarters

HQ city

Brussels

HQ country

Belgium

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. EU Research Infrastructure Funding: EBRAINS is primarily funded through EU research infrastructure projects. The EBRAINS 2.0 project received total funding of 37,995,292 Euros from the EU Horizon-INFRA-2022-SERV-B-01 programme. The infrastructure was originally built by the EU-funded Human Brain Project and continues to receive support from the European Commission, a network of National Nodes and institutional partners.
2. Free Access Services: EBRAINS services are open and free to researchers. Users can register for accounts to access complete tools and services at no cost. Some resources are available publicly without an account.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

EBRAINS is an open digital research infrastructure that provides data, tools, and services for brain-related research spanning from the molecular and cellular levels to the whole organ. Its offering centers on six service categories: Brain Atlases (3D navigable maps of human, macaque, marmoset, rat, and mouse brains with APIs), Medical Analytics (clinical data platforms for imaging, EEG, and health records), Modelling & Simulation (multi-scale brain modeling including whole-brain, network, cellular, and molecular), Data & Knowledge (knowledge graph for data sharing), Collaborative Platform (cloud workspace), and Computing Infrastructure (neuromorphic and high-performance computing access).

Product overview

EBRAINS is an open research infrastructure (RI) that provides data, tools and services for brain-related research — from the molecular and cellular levels to the whole organ. It functions as a platform-plus-modules architecture centered around six core service categories: Brain Atlases (navigable 3D brain maps including Human, Macaque, Marmoset, Rat, and Mouse atlases with APIs and analysis tools), Medical Analytics (clinical data platforms including Platform for Human Imaging, Medical Informatics Platform, Human Intracerebral EEG Platform, and Health Data Cloud), Modelling & Simulation (multi-scale brain modeling from whole-brain to molecular levels), Data & Knowledge (Knowledge Graph for finding and sharing brain data, models, and software), Collaborative Platform (Collaboratory cloud workspace for real-time co-design), and Computing Infrastructure (neuromorphic computing and HPC access). The infrastructure was originally built by the EU-funded Human Brain Project and is now being advanced through the EBRAINS 2.0 project (2024-2026). Notable advanced capabilities include the CytoNet foundation model for neural microarchitecture analysis.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Brain Atlases

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 100 research publications produced by EBRAINS 2.0 project since January 2024
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

26 partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• Forschungszentrum JulichcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLeading partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project. Home to EBRAINS Joint-CEO Katrin Amunts and Helmholtz AI research group leader Christian Schiffer who lead the CytoNet project. Hosts JUPITER exascale supercomputer used for brain research simulations.
• European Academy of Neurology (EAN)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAs EBRAINS 2.0 project partner, EAN leads publication of the European Journal of Neurology (EJoN) Special Issue on Digital Health Research in Clinical Neurosciences. Provides in-kind contribution supporting article processing charges for commissioned papers.
• NvidiacoreTechnology or IntegrationNvidia presented EBRAINS-powered CytoNet foundation model during International Supercomputing Conference. CytoNet was trained on JUPITER using 4,096 NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips. Nvidia Executive Briefing featured CytoNet as one of the first research projects on the JUPITER Exascale computer.
• Human Brain ProjectcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEBRAINS infrastructure was originally built by the EU-funded Human Brain Project, which employed over 500 scientists at more than 130 universities and research institutes. Human Brain Project legacy continues through EBRAINS infrastructure.
• Aix-Marseille UniversitemajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in EBRAINS 2.0 project through Protisvalor, representing French research institutions.
• Athena Research & Innovation CentermajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerGreek research institution partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• University of OslomajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNorwegian university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• Charite - Universitatsmedizin BerlinmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerGerman university medical center partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project. Home to Brain Simulation Section led by Prof. Dr. Petra Ritter contributing to multiscale brain modelling.
• KU LeuvenmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerBelgian university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• CNRSmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerFrench national research centre partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• CEA (Commissariat a l'energie atomique)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerFrench alternative energies commission partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project. Home to EBRAINS Joint-CEO Philippe Vernier.
• CINECA Consorzio InteruniversitariomajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerItalian inter-university consortium partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• ETH ZurichmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSwiss Federal Institute of Technology partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSwiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• UCL (University College London)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUK university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• University of CambridgemajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUK university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• InriamajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerFrench national research institute for digital science partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• InsermmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerFrench national institute of health and medical research partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• University of Santiago de CompostelamajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerJoined EBRAINS AISBL as associate member in 2026. USC brings expertise in neuroscience and biomedical sciences. CiMUS (Center for Research in Molecular Medicine and Chronic Diseases) will bridge molecular medicine with large-scale computational neuroscience.
• Euro-BioImagingmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean Research Infrastructure for Imaging Technologies in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. EBRAINS collaborates with Euro-BioImaging for synergies and joint presentations at events like FENS 2026.
• EATRISmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean Research Infrastructure for Translational Medicine. Collaboration highlighted during EBRAINS events for synergies in European Research Infrastructures.
• Maastricht UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerDutch university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• Universitat HeidelbergmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerGerman university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project. Home to BrainScaleS-2 neuromorphic computing chip.
• Technical University of MunichmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerGerman technical university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• Technische Universitat DresdenmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerGerman technical university partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.
• Consiglio Nazionale delle RicerchemajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerItalian National Research Council partner in EBRAINS 2.0 project.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• G-Node (German Neuroinformatics Node): Provides data management, analysis tools, and training for electrophysiology and neuroscience — overlapping with EBRAINS' Data & Knowledge and Collaboratory offerings in the European neuroinformatics community.
• OpenNeuro: Open platform for sharing and analyzing neuroimaging data (BIDS format); serves overlapping neuroscience research user base as a free, community-driven brain data infrastructure with similar GTM ethos.
• Blue Brain Project (EPFL): EPFL-based project building digital reconstructions and simulations of the mouse brain, sharing EBRAINS' lineage via the Human Brain Project and focusing on multi-scale modelling and simulation — a direct technical and institutional peer.
• Allen Institute for Brain Science: US non-profit research organization producing brain atlases, large-scale datasets, and open neuroscience tools — the most direct global comparator to EBRAINS in scope, mission, and open-data philosophy.
• NeuroMorpho.Org: Open-access database of digitally reconstructed neurons — a focused, peer-reviewed neuroscience data infrastructure serving a subset of EBRAINS' atlas and data-sharing use cases.
• NITRC (NeuroImaging Tools & Resources Collaboratory): US-based open repository and community for neuroimaging software and data, similar to EBRAINS' platform-plus-tools approach for the clinical and computational neuroscience user base.

Broad incumbents

• Simons Foundation (Simons Brain Research): US private foundation funding large-scale brain research, atlasing, and data initiatives (e.g., Flatiron Institute); broader-scope funder and operator, but a comparable scale of investment in open neuroscience infrastructure.

Emerging players

• Human Cell Atlas: Large-scale international consortium building comprehensive reference maps of human cells; analogous in mission, governance model, and consortium-driven data infrastructure approach, though focused on cellular rather than brain-specific atlasing.

Regional players

• Salk Institute (Computational Neurobiology): Major US research institute with significant brain-mapping and neuroscience computing programs; operates comparable atlasing and modeling research as part of a broader biology portfolio, primarily in North America.

Others

• INCF (International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility): International non-profit coordinating standards and training for neuroinformatics; shares EBRAINS' open-data, community-led ethos and operates in the same standards/governance layer rather than as a direct infrastructure competitor.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ebrains_eu
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@ebrains7245
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/51657938

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about EBRAINS