Source丨IT orange
Author丨Fok Yingxian
Editor丨Wu Meimei
Cover picture source: Wenxin Yige
In recent years, the domestic robot industry has made significant technological progress, including breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, perception technology, autonomous navigation and other technologies, so that robots can better adapt to complex environments and task needs, and drive the accelerated development of the robot industry. Of course, technological progress is an external driving factor, and the rapid development of the new economy industry itself is inseparable from the help of capital, the hard work of entrepreneurs and the joint efforts of these market participants such as the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. This article is the next part of the "2023-2024 China Robot Track Investment and Financing Report", and the first and middle parts have been released on the IT Orange official account, click to view. Based on the data of IT Juzi, a professional data service provider in the primary market, we will show you the unicorn companies in China's robotics industry. IT orange data shows that by the end of 2023, there will be 14 robot unicorns on the list in China.
Most of the companies were promoted to unicorns after 2019, especially in 2021-2022, there are 9 unicorn companies, accounting for 64% of the total unicorn companies.
The birth of unicorn enterprises is closely related to the development of the industry, the domestic robot industry as an emerging track, broke out around 2017, after several years of development, the technology gradually matured, in 2021, the investment and financing of the robot industry will prosper again, capital continues to help, and the financing amount and valuation of some enterprises have also risen, and they have entered the ranks of unicorns. Here are three robotics unicorns:
MindMinds Technology: "Embodied Intelligence + Humanoid Robot" At present, the robot unicorn enterprise with the highest valuation in China is MindMinds Technology. Founded in 2015, MindMinds became a unicorn company after its Series B financing in 2019.
Among the previous investors, including Masayoshi Son's Vision Fund, which has invested many times in a row, as well as top VCs such as Walden International, Oriental Fuhai, Langma Venture Capital, Bojiang Capital, and Triumph Venture Capital; Including Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Zhuhai local industry funds, the National SME Development Fund and China Mobile and other state-owned parties; It also includes Gemdale Group, Foxconn and other industrial scene investors. MindMinds has developed the world's first cloud-based robot brain operating system, Hairui OS, Hairui AGI platform and RobotGPT multi-modal large model. The cloud "brain" model has been constructed, the "cerebellum" model based on multi-sensor fusion perception and motion control has been developed, and the machine-brain fusion intelligent platform with device-cloud collaboration has been built, which can support the access and operation of millions of robots.
MindMinds provides third-party developers and partners with a full-process tool chain and platform for end-to-end digital twin environment, modeling, simulation, training, development and operation of robots, opens up rich resources, and lowers the threshold for the design, training and development of cloud robots and humanoid robots.
At present, MindMinds has formed a complete end-to-end industrialization capability of R&D, production, sales and operation of cloud intelligent robots, cloud brains and large models, and has served thousands of customers and hundreds of industrial chain partners.
Zhiyuan Robot: "A Unicorn Growing at the Speed of Light"
With Musk's "Optimus Prime" detonating the humanoid robot market, Zhiyuan Robot, as one of the pioneers in the field of humanoid robot research and development, is undoubtedly the robot company that will attract the most attention from the capital market in 2023. Founded in February 2023, the company has completed 5 rounds of financing in just one year:
At the beginning of its establishment, it received nearly 100 million yuan of angel round investment from MiraclePlus and Hillhouse Venture Capital;
In May, it received billions of yuan in Series A investment from Baidu Venture Capital, Jingwei Venture Capital, CDH Investment, Gaorong Capital, and Lingang City Investment, and the valuation of Zhiyuan Robot has reached 7 billion yuan at this time, and it has been promoted to a unicorn;
In August, it received hundreds of millions of yuan of A+ round investment from BYD, Wofu Venture Capital and Lanchi Venture Capital; At the same time, in August, Zhiyuan Robot held a new product launch conference and launched its first generation of general-purpose embodied intelligent robot "Expedition A1".
In December, it received 600 million yuan in A++ round of investment, with investors including Zhongke Chuangxing, Sanhua Holdings, Cornerstone Capital, Ginkgo Valley Capital, Changfei Optical Fiber, C Capital, and Lijing Innovation, and the old shareholders Hillhouse Venture Capital, Lanchi Venture Capital, and CDH Investment continued to invest.
It can be found that the investors behind Zhiyuan Robot not only include well-known VCs such as Hillhouse Venture Capital and Lanchi Venture Capital, but also include CVC such as BYD, Baidu Venture Capital, Sanhua Holdings, and government guidance funds such as Lingang Science and Technology Innovation. With the help of many capitals, Zhiyuan Robot has maintained a rapid development rhythm of completing a financing every two months on average.
On March 20, 2024, Zhiyuan Robotics received investment again, with investors including M31 Capital, Sequoia China, and Shangqi Capital.
In the future, the dynamics and achievements of Zhiyuan Robot will undoubtedly continue to be the focus of investors' attention.
Pudu Technology: The "Hidden Champion" of the Subdivision Track
Founded in 2016, Pudu Technology focuses on commercial service robot solutions, and its growth trajectory has highlights and twists and turns, and it is also the epitome of the development of China's commercial service robot industry.
From the initial food delivery robot, to the later building robot, cleaning robot and other diversified product matrix, Pudu Technology has continuously expanded its business areas to meet the diversified needs of the market, and promoted the inflection point of domestic commercial service robots from immaturity to maturity.
Since its establishment, Purdue Technology has completed 11 rounds of financing, and top investment institutions such as Meituan, Sequoia China, and Tencent have entered the game, providing strong financial support for Purdue Technology and accelerating the pace of product development and market expansion of Purdue Technology.
However, like all unicorns, Purdue Technology is facing many challenges while growing rapidly. With the intensification of market competition and the continuous progress of technology, how to maintain a leading position, how to achieve sustainable profitability, how to expand new application scenarios and other issues are all placed in front of Purdue Technology.
In 2022, there was news of layoffs at Purdue Capital, which made people sweat for the future of Purdue Technology. Behind the layoffs is the emergence of deep-seated problems such as the capital market entering a cold winter and the industry's profitability problems.
However, with the completion of financing in 2023 - in 2023, it received exclusive Series C investment from PwC Capital and Reading Capital, respectively, Purdue Technology has regained its vitality. After this round of financing, Purdue Technology was valued at 7 billion yuan after investment and was promoted to a unicorn. For more unicorn lists, please also check out the unicorn club on the official website of IT Orange.
https://www.itjuzi.com/unicorn
The first part is the analysis of macro investment and financing data of the robot track (released), and the middle part is the financing analysis of each link of the robot industry chain (released)
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