A sensor company received A+ round of financing led by Shunwei Capital

On July 5, Chevening Technology, a provider of industrial intelligent sensor solutions, announced the completion of a nearly 10 million USD Series A+ round of financing, led by Shunwei Capital and co-invested by Yiheda. Potential Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

Founded in 2010, Chevening Technology focuses on the development of industrial-grade smart sensors, providing precision intelligence and AI sensing solutions including high-precision positioning, image recognition, precision measurement, and obstacle avoidance safety for the 3C electronics, new energy, semiconductor process, medical electronics, and service robotics industries.

Chevening Technology has more than 120 core patents and has R&D centers in Shenzhen and Changsha. It has an annual production capacity of tens of millions of units. Among them, Meiji Sensor's shipments this year will exceed 6 million units . It has more than 200 global agents, customers in 60 countries and regions, and more than 16,000 cooperative customers.

In 2021, Chevening Technology achieved a revenue of nearly 100 million yuan , of which more than 60% came from the 3C electronics and new energy markets, and total revenue is expected to grow by 120% this year.

Investors have rich industrial resources

Shunwei Capital, the lead investor in Chevening Technology's A+ round of financing, was co-founded by Lei Jun and Xu Laida in 2011. Looking back at Shunwei Capital's investment history over the past 10 years, we can find that "robots" can be seen everywhere, and the word "following the trend" runs through it all the time.

Shunwei Capital invested in four-legged robot developer Yushu Technology, collaborative robot manufacturer Fao Robotics, unmanned forklift company Future Robotics, and 3D machine vision company Tuyang Technology in 2021. In 2020, it invested in Shanghai Shenshi Technology, a provider of industrial AI vision products and solutions. In 2019, it invested in LiDAR developer BeXing Photonics. In 2018, it invested in industrial intelligent machine vision application solutions and high-end equipment manufacturing supplier Gaoshi Technology, electric gripper & direct drive robot arm provider Huiling Technology, and full-range robot provider Luoshi Robotics. In 2017, it invested in warehouse robot developer Jit Technology, etc. The business scope of these companies covers robots and automation, factory digitization, high-end equipment, core components and other fields. This lead investment in Chevening Technology is Shunwei Capital's layout in another sub-sector of core components.

Fang Yiheda, the follow-up investor in this round of financing for Chevening Technology, is the first FA automation standard parts company to be listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's ChiNext in July 2021.

Jin Liguo, chairman of Yiheta, analyzed that sensors, as key and rigid parts of automation equipment, play a vital role in the stable operation of a piece of equipment. In the past, due to the good profits of automation equipment and the stability of domestic sensors, they have not been chosen by equipment manufacturers and have been monopolized by imported brands for a long time. However, with the outbreak of the epidemic and the shortage of chips, imported brand sensors have encountered serious delivery and price increase problems.

Jin Liguo believes: "As a mainstream supplier of domestic sensors, Chevening Technology has always attached great importance to product construction, investing a lot of money every year in the design and development of new products, and continuing to work hard on brand building and overseas market promotion. Relying on the advantages of China's complete industrial chain, it can ensure product quality while solving product delivery problems. " This investment is bound to deepen the business cooperation between Yiheta and Chevening Technology.

At the same time, it can be found that the investor of Chevening Technology's last round of financing was Sany Heavy Industry. Now, in addition to Sany Heavy Industry, Chevening Technology's users also include Apple, Huawei, Foxconn, Samsung, BYD, ATL and other companies.

Domestic substitution is the main logic

For a long time, the global industrial sensor market has been mainly occupied by foreign brands such as OMRON, Panasonic, SICK, and KEYENCE. In addition, due to their accumulation of patents in new semiconductor materials and core technologies, the localization rate of my country's industrial intelligent sensor market is relatively low, about 30%, and it faces challenges such as lack of core technology, oversupply of low-end products, and serious product homogeneity.

Tang Kexin, founder and CEO of Chevening Technology , analyzed that in addition to the underlying technology, industrial intelligent sensors also need to enhance brand power and build a sales network. The company was initially established as an agent for German industrial sensor brands. In 2011, the Meiji Sensor brand was established, and strategic cooperation with Taiwan's SCAN company was established to form the initial product line. In 2014, it began to independently develop industrial photoelectric sensor products.

Today, Chevening Technology has built four major product lines: precision positioning sensors, deep learning, precision measurement sensors, and safety obstacle avoidance sensors, covering 14 categories and 93 different series. Among them, the company's core products are precision positioning sensors and precision measurement sensors.

Meiji Sensor's core technologies and industry solutions

In this round of financing, Chevening Technology will mainly use it for: First, in terms of research and development, the company will continue to expand its underlying research and development team to support optoelectronic underlying devices and chips, and optical research and development, while building 5 laboratories such as precision optics, upgrading intelligent workshops and increasing production capacity; Second, in terms of business, the company will continue to upgrade the business flows of various departments, add 6 new offices in other places, and form a service network that can support 200 core dealers and 40,000 users, further enhance customer experience and service speed, and provide more comprehensive industrial intelligent sensor solutions.