Humanoid robot financing is really on fire.
Unitree Technology, an intelligent robot start-up, recently completed nearly 1 billion yuan in B2 round of financing, and this round of investors includes Meituan, Goldstone Investment, Source Code Capital, and old shareholders Shenzhen Venture Capital, China Network Investment, Rongyi, Dunhong and Mida Junshi followed the investment. Unitree Technology was founded in 2016, starting from quadruped robots, and in early 2023, the project was established as a humanoid robot product, and in the same year, the first universal humanoid robot product Unitree H1 was launched. Since its establishment, Unitree has completed a total of 7 rounds of financing, and its historical investors include Sequoia China, Shunwei Capital, Matrix Partners and other well-known institutions.
From the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024, the Chinese humanoid robot track continues to be funded. In January, the humanoid robot company Xingdong Era, founded by Chen Jianyu, a "post-90s doctoral supervisor" of Tsinghua University, announced that it had completed an angel round of financing of more than 100 million yuan, led by Lenovo Venture Capital, followed by Jinding Capital and Qingkong Tiancheng; In December 2023, Zhiyuan Robot, founded by Peng Zhihui, a former "Huawei genius boy", completed an A3 round of financing of more than 600 million yuan, and many institutions such as Lanchi Venture Capital, Zhongke Chuangxing, CDH Investment, Hillhouse Venture Capital, Sanhua Holding Group, and Cornerstone Capital entered the game, and the valuation after this round of financing is said to have exceeded 1 billion US dollars. The financing of these humanoid robot startups is huge, there are many participating institutions, and the popularity of the track is comparable to that of AI models. I've been shouting "the first year of humanoid robots" for years, and this time it seems to be really coming.
The post-90s generation has been in business for six years and has won seven rounds of financing
Unitree Technology, which has just melted 1 billion yuan, is founded by Wang Xingxing, a post-90s generation.
Wang Xingxing has been a science and technology fan since he was a child, he likes to tinker with all kinds of things, rewound the windings of the DC motor of the four-wheel drive car in elementary school, and tried to "hand-rub" the micro turbojet engine for several years in junior high school; The high school made its own chemically rechargeable battery. Wang Xingxing was admitted to Zhejiang Sci-Tech University as an undergraduate, and became obsessed with robotics during his college years. In 2014, Wang Xingxing entered Shanghai University to study for a master's degree, and he decided to make a large robot as his master's graduation project. In the end, due to budget constraints, Wang Xingxing's large-scale robot could not be realized, but he spent 20,000 yuan and did not hesitate to delay graduation, and finally made a quadruped robot XDOG. In the summer of 2015, Wang Xingxing took XDOG to participate in the entrepreneurship competition in Shanghai, won the second prize of the international intelligent "Star Creator" competition, and won a bonus of 80,000 yuan, which is the first pot of gold earned by Wang Xingxing as a robot, and it has also become the starting point of Wang Xingxing's future entrepreneurship.
After making XDOG, Wang Xingxing tried to contact some investors to see if he could start his own business, but there was little response. In 2016, Wang Xingxing graduated with a master's degree and joined DJI, but he didn't expect that at this time, XDOG's test** suddenly became popular on the Internet, which attracted the attention of VC, and some investors took the initiative to come to the door. So Wang Xingxing resigned decisively and established Unitree Technology in 2016.
After the establishment of Unitree Technology, it launched a variety of quadruped robots such as GO2, B2, and ALIENGO in six years. These robots are capable of covering a wide range of scenarios in both To C and To B. Among them, the GO2 robot mainly focuses on the C-side, which is suitable for scenarios such as going out to run and walking, and the running speed is equivalent to that of a top marathon runner, and this time, the real-time image transmission, radar height map display and AI interaction realized by large language models. The B2 robot is aimed at the B-end, which can carry a load of 40kg and continue to operate, which is suitable for agriculture, industry, security inspection, survey and exploration, public rescue, etc.
Unitree's quadruped robot products are very successful, which allows Unitree to maintain the speed of one round of financing a year and develop rapidly after its establishment. According to Wang Xingxing's own statement, Unitree's shipments can account for 60% of the world's quadruped robot shipments. Unitree's robot dog boarded the Spring Festival Gala and was also selected for the Hangzhou Asian Games to transport competition equipment for the contestants.
But Wang Xingxing's dream has always been a humanoid robot. In mid-2023, Unitree Technology launched the first universal humanoid robot product Unitree H1 with a weight of 47kg, which was unveiled at the CES exhibition that year, and was the only humanoid robot that could run automatically on site at that time. The biggest feature of Unitree Technology is that it is self-developed from high energy density joint motors, reducers, 3D laser radars to perception and motion control algorithms. At present, Unitree has applied for more than 180 domestic and foreign patents and authorized more than 150 patents, and is currently the only quadruped robot company selected as a national specialized and new "little giant".
With the landing of the B2 round of financing, Wang Xingxing said that Unitree Technology will continue to break through technology and promote the integration of AI + general robots, so that general robots can truly play their value in home and industry scenarios.
In 2024, humanoid robots will usher in a tipping point
At the end of 2023, Jim Fan, senior research scientist at NVIDIA & head of the AI team, posted on the X platform that 2024 will usher in a critical point in the development of robots, "We are still 3 years away from the ChatGPT moment of physical AI agents."
In the past, when people talked about the word robot, they referred more to highly limited robot applications such as robotic arms, but in 2023, we have seen a lot of robots with a sense of science fiction coming out, and they have begun to make the word robot on ** more in line with the original meaning of the word.
Among them, the most out-of-the-circle is undoubtedly the "Optimus Prime" generation announced by Tesla at the shareholders' meeting in May 2023. The humanoid robot can already perform many human movements very smoothly, not only walking steadily, but also gently picking up fragile eggs.
Entering 2024, the progress of humanoid robots is even more dazzling. At the beginning of January, the stir-fry robot Mobile Aloha released by the Stanford Chinese team made a table full of Han people and swiped the whole network. A few days later, Musk, who was not to be outdone, also posted the ** of "Optimus Prime" folding clothes. Immediately afterwards, the American robot startup Figure released a video of robot coffee brewing, in which the robot can autonomously open the lid of the coffee machine, put in the coffee pod, press the start button, and complete the entire coffee brewing process in one go. What's even more imaginative is that the figure says that the robot learns to make coffee autonomously by looking at the **.
At the same time, the capital action of the humanoid machine track has also increased significantly. At the end of 2023 in China, start-up companies will raise funds one after another, and UBTECH has successfully landed on the Hong Kong stock market, becoming China's "first stock of humanoid robots", with a market value of nearly HK $40 billion.
It is also very lively abroad. On January 11, 1X, an AI robotics company participated by OpenAI, announced the completion of a $100 million Series B financing, with investors including Samsung Next**, Swedish private equity**EQT, etc. The funds will be used primarily to bring its second-generation bipedal humanoid robot, Android Neo, to market, as well as to support existing enterprise customers in logistics and security. Designed for everyday household assistance, NEO provides versatile support for a wide range of household tasks in the consumer market.
Of course, today's humanoid robots are still in the stage of attracting attention, and there is still a long way to go from being practical. For example, after releasing Optimus Prime's folding clothes, Musk quickly clarified: "Optimus Prime can't fold shirts autonomously now, but (in the future) he can definitely do it completely autonomously in any environment (no need for a fixed table, and there is only one shirt in the box on the table)." ”
China's future "Iron Man".
However, the influx of capital into the humanoid robot track is certainly not because people are stupid and have a lot of money.
Although you can still occasionally hear the opinion that "it is stupid to make a robot into a ** shape", the future of robots belongs to humanoid robots, which is basically a global consensus. With the rapid development of AI models, human beings have seen the possibility of general artificial intelligence for the first time, and the ultimate carrier of general artificial intelligence is undoubtedly humanoid robots.
Chen Jianyu, the founder of Xingdong Era, who has just completed an angel round of financing of more than 100 million yuan, believes: "Theoretically, no robot can have such a high degree of flexibility and the ability to perfectly adapt to human society as humanoid. ”
It's not as far away as it seems. Chen Jianyu**, with the emergence of AI large models, robots have been greatly improved in terms of hardware, software, intelligence, interactivity, etc., and from the perspective of technical feasibility, the possibility of developing the next generation of robots has been achieved.
What is more noteworthy is that including Wang Xingxing of Unitree Technology, the Chinese humanoid robot track is rising a post-90s entrepreneurial army.
For example, Chen Jianyu, who was admitted to the Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanics of Tsinghua University in 2011, began to study humanoid robots during his undergraduate years. In 2014, Chen Jianyu entered the University of California, Berkeley, to study under Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a pioneer in the field of electromechanical control. After graduating with a Ph.D., Jianyu Chen returned to Tsinghua University and became an assistant professor and doctoral supervisor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University.
In August 2023, Chen Jianyu founded Xingdong Era, and completed two rounds of financing in half a year, the seed round and the angel round. At present, Xingdong Era has also realized the complete self-development of the ontology, drive, joint motor, and control algorithm of humanoid robots. Xingdong epoch plans to launch a full-size humanoid robot this year, and achieve small-batch mass production and shipment, first for scientific research scenarios, and then gradually expand to industry, services, etc.
Another hot humanoid startup is Zhiyuan Robotics, which Peng Zhihui co-founded. Peng Zhihui graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China with a master's degree in 2018, and released various self-made technology products on station B under the name of "Zhihuijun" during his college years, accumulating a large number of fans. In 2020, Peng Zhihui was selected for Huawei's "Genius Youth Program" and joined Huawei as an algorithm engineer with an annual salary of one million, making Peng Zhihui's name popular in the circle.
In February 2023, Peng Zhihui and Yan Weixin, a professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, co-founded Zhiyuan Robot, and raised five rounds of financing within a year. In August 2023, Zhiyuan Robotics released the first-generation general-purpose humanoid bipedal robot "Expedition A1" with a height of 175cm and a weight of 53kg, and it is expected to release the second-generation humanoid robot product in 2024. Whether it is Wang Xingxing, Chen Jianyu or Peng Zhihui, it is no accident that this group of post-90s entrepreneurs are sought after by capital. Their resumes have a lot in common, they are not only teenage geniuses, but also obsessed with technology since childhood, with a strong desire to explore and hands-on ability. With the acceleration of the robot age, they are China's future "Iron Man".