news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

On July 15, a reporter from Nanduwan Finance learned from Zhuji Power that the company recently completed its Series A strategic financing, led by three industrial capitals: Hangzhou Haoyue under Alibaba, China Merchants Venture Capital, and Shangqi Capital, a private equity investment platform under SAIC Group. Old shareholders Frees Capital, Oasis Capital and Mingshi Capital continued to follow up.

A reporter from Nanduwan Finance observed that since last year, the robotics track of the science and technology innovation market has set off a new wave of enthusiasm. With the rapid development of general artificial intelligence technology and large model technology and their combined application with robot hardware, this field has become a hot track that is of common concern to industry leaders, venture capital, and local governments.

Financing target locked in industrial investors, general robotics startup seeks to accelerate implementation

According to reports, the goal of this round of financing by Zhuji Power is to find matching strategic industrial resources and application scenarios for general humanoid robots. While using multi-modal large models to accelerate the technological breakthrough of general humanoid robots, it also promotes the verification and iteration of related technologies in real scenarios, laying a technical and industrial foundation for the commercial application of general humanoid robots in multiple scenarios. The three industry lead investors in this round cover multiple strategic application scenarios such as AI, automobile manufacturing, logistics and urban integrated services.

A humanoid robot product developed by Zhuji Power.

According to Nanduwan Finance, Zhuji Power was founded in 2022 by Zhang Wei, a professor of mechanical and energy engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology. Headquartered in Shenzhen, the company focuses on the research and development of advanced software and hardware, and currently covers full-size humanoid robots, four-wheeled robots, bipedal robots and related solutions. In October 2023, the company announced its first financing news, completing angel and Pre-A rounds of financing totaling nearly 200 million yuan. Investors include Frees Capital, Oasis Capital, Lenovo Capital, etc.

"We have locked in industrial investors from the beginning of our Series A financing, because scenarios mean time, money and technology," said Zhang Wei, founder of Zhuji Power. The AI ​​era of universal humanoid robots requires technology companies to understand scenarios even more. This round of financing allows Zhuji Power's universal robot technology to enter multiple strategic industries, which will help speed up the construction of the basic large model of humanoid robots and make technology iteration more compatible with real needs.

The investment team of China Merchants Venture Capital said that AI is one of the important directions of the strategic emerging industry layout of China Merchants Group's "third entrepreneurship". Universal robots, as an important physical carrier of AI technology, will enter thousands of industries in the future. As a comprehensive central enterprise, China Merchants Group has a wealth of application scenarios in the fields of transportation and logistics, comprehensive finance, and comprehensive development of cities and parks. The investment in Zhuji Power is an important step for China Merchants Group in the layout of industrial artificial intelligence innovation.

The investment team of Shangqi Capital said that with the explosion of large-scale model technology and the continuous reduction of hardware costs, the team believes that universal humanoid robots are the best next-generation intelligent terminal hardware equipped with AI. As the lead investor and industry partner of this round, they look forward to working with the company to accelerate the application of universal humanoid robots in fields such as intelligent manufacturing.

Has the “first year of universal humanoid robots” arrived? Industry leaders, venture capital, and local governments are accelerating their deployment

In the past two years, both overseas and in China, with the development of general artificial intelligence technology, the robotics industry has also ushered in an opportunity to upgrade from dedicated to general scenarios. In October 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots", positioning humanoid robots as "promising to become disruptive products after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles." At the market level, general humanoid robots are also regarded as one of the important concepts of "new quality productivity."

Some experts believe that the emergence of large artificial intelligence models is a major reason for the new upsurge in the field of robotics from last year to this year. Many difficulties and problems that robots have faced before, such as more fluent language and action interaction with humans, may be solved through embodied intelligence and large models. When robotics technology reaches a usable level in some scenarios, it will drive industrial development.

Entering 2024, the general humanoid robot track remains hot. According to data from ITjuzi, a venture capital market data agency, there were about 60 financing events in the domestic robot track by the end of June this year. From the financing stage, the vast majority were in the early stage of pre-A round or A round. Some market analysts believe that 2024 has entered the "first year of general humanoid robots", which is a critical period for humanoid robots to move from the prototype stage to mass production and application landing.

At the end of June, Beijing Galaxy General Robotics Co., Ltd., led by Meituan, announced the completion of an angel round of financing of RMB 700 million. This financing is not only the largest angel round investment in the venture capital market this year, but also the largest early-stage investment in the robotics industry, which has aroused heated discussions in the market.

It is reported that the company's angel round investors include strategic and industrial investors such as Meituan Strategic Investment Department, BAIC Capital, SenseTime Guoxiang Fund, and iFlytek Fund; and leading financial institutions such as Qiming Venture Partners, BlueRun Ventures, Matrix Partners, Source Code Capital, and IDG Capital. This reflects the common attention paid by both the industry and investors to this track.

While technology industry giants are entering the market, governments in many places are also actively planning related industries. For example, Beijing issued the "Beijing Robot Industry Innovation and Development Action Plan (2023-2025)" in June 2023, which clearly proposed to take the small-batch production and application of humanoid robots as the goal, create basic conditions such as general intelligent underlying software and interfaces, and general hardware development supporting facilities, and focus on breakthroughs in key technologies such as general prototypes of humanoid robots and general artificial intelligence large models.

In October 2023, Shanghai announced the "Shanghai Action Plan to Promote High-Quality Innovation and Development of the Intelligent Robot Industry (2023-2025)", proposing to build a robotics industry innovation highland with global influence by 2025.

In the "Several Measures of Guangdong Province on Empowering Thousands of Industries with Artificial Intelligence" issued by Guangdong Province in June 2024, it was also proposed to promote the innovative development of intelligent robots as the first measure to build a new highland for intelligent terminal products, shape a new image of Guangdong brand, and enhance intelligence and strengthen high-end equipment.

Guangdong Province's policy proposes to accelerate the research and development of products such as machine brains, machine limbs, machine bodies, and general products, and promote the development and application of embodied intelligent robots such as humanoid robots. Develop high-precision industrial robots such as flexible interactive and dynamically planned path collaborative robots and adaptive robots, and accelerate the application and promotion of service robots with intelligent human-machine interaction and multi-degree-of-freedom precision control. By 2027, the operating income of the intelligent robot industry will reach 90 billion yuan.

Written by: Nanduwan Financial News reporter Xu Jincong