The amount of financing in the robotics field will exceed 15 billion in 2023

Looking at the overall development in 2023, although the recovery and growth rate of the industry are not as expected, there are still many cases of corporate financing in popular fields such as humanoid robots, 3D vision, surgical robots, and more subdivided fields such as grinding, spraying, and vision.

According to incomplete statistics from Gaogong Robotics, from January to December 2023, there were 196 financing cases in the robot industry , with a total financing amount of more than 15 billion yuan . (Note: "nearly 100 million yuan" and "more than 100 million yuan" are calculated as 100 million yuan. The currencies of other countries/regions are roughly converted according to the exchange rate on January 9, 2024.) According to the number of financing in each quarter, the difference in the number of financing in each quarter of 2023 is not large, and Q3 financing cases are the majority, with a total of 60 cases. There were 46 financing cases in Q1 of 2023; 43 financing cases in Q2 of 2023; and 47 financing cases in Q4 of 2023. According to the range of financing amounts, it is still dominated by financing cases of 100 million yuan and 10 million yuan. Among them, there were 7 cases with financing amounts of more than 500 million yuan. In the robot industry, both the main body and the core components and supporting parts are research and development-intensive industries. Combined with the enthusiasm for domestic substitution and the investment enthusiasm of emerging industries, the amount of corporate financing is often above 10 million. In addition, there were 64 cases of financing at the 100 million yuan level (100-500 million); 81 cases of financing at the 10 million yuan level; 5 cases of financing at the 1 million yuan level; and 39 cases with undisclosed financing amounts. Judging from the number of financing cases in each round, in 2023, the number of financing cases in the relevant stages of Pre-A and A rounds was obviously "peaked", accounting for nearly 40% of all rounds throughout the year. Round A financing is a critical round for companies and often occurs at a critical period of corporate development. After the initial development after the angel round, it is the rapid growth stage for companies to expand their business scale and increase their market share. Therefore, it is often necessary to inject a certain amount of new funds to promote the next stage of development. Specifically, there were 42 cases in the angel round, seed round and related stages; 78 cases in the Pre-A round, A round and related stages; 31 cases in the Pre-B round, B round and related stages; 24 cases in the C round and related stages; 4 cases in the D round and related stages; 1 case in the E round; and 16 cases in others (undisclosed, strategic financing, etc.).

Most: Big

500 million and above, 7 cases

Financing amount and round: Over 1 billion yuan in Series C

Company: Dahua Robotics

Field: Service Robots

Time: July 2023

Investors: Knowledge City Group, Shanghai Guosheng Investment Group, Shuimu Chunjin

Dahua Robotics was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Shanghai. It has completed five rounds of financing. Its cloud-based robots and solutions have been applied to public health, smart agriculture, smart medical care, public safety, smart education, smart cities, commercial retail and other fields.

Financing amount and round: US$170 million in Series B

Company: Lexistence

Field: Replenishment Robot

Time: July 2023

Investors: HH-CTBC (Foxconn Co-GP) Fund, SoftBank, rbus Ventures, Monoful Venture Partner, KDDI Open Innovation Fund and Globis Catal Partners

Telexistence is a Japanese robotics startup. This round of financing is the third round of financing since the two rounds of financing disclosed in 2018 (Round A, undisclosed) and 2021 (Round A-2, $20 million). Currently, Telexistence has received a total of more than $190 million in financing. (For more details of the article, click: Foxconn + SoftBank: Frequent Robot Layout)

Source: Telexistence official website

Financing amount and round: US$230 million in Series E

Company: Skydio

field:

Time: February 2023

Investors: Linse Capital, Hercules Capital, Axon

Skydio was founded in 2014 and is a US company that focuses on the development and manufacturing of drones. It focuses on developing drones that are easy to control and can achieve self-navigation. As of this round, Skydio has completed US$562 million in financing and is valued at US$2.2 billion.

Financing amount and round: 800 million yuan in Series C

Company: Connosten

Field: Surgical Robotics

Time: June 2023

Investors: Daohe Investment, Lenovo Capital, Qingsong Capital, Meituan Longzhu, Qiming Venture Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, New World Development Group, Xiangfeng K2VC

Founded in September 2019, Connosten has completed the construction of the underlying technology platform and industrialization platform, and has mastered the independent research and development and independent control of core technologies such as architecture, software architecture, complex and visual imaging systems, and realized the multi-pipeline layout of soft tissue surgical robots and other major specialized surgical robots.

Financing amount and round: over 600 million yuan A+++ round

Company: Zhiyuan Robotics

Field: Humanoid Robots

Time: December 2023

Investors: BlueRun Ventures, China Star Ventures, CDH Investments, Changfei Investment, C Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Lijing Innovation, Sanhua Holdings Group, Cornerstone Capital, Lingang New Area Fund, and Ginkgo Valley Capital

Zhiyuan Robotics was founded in February 2023 by Peng Zhihui, the "genius boy Zhihuijun" of Huawei. Zhiyuan Robotics' first-generation general-purpose embodied robot "Expedition A1" embodies full-stack innovation capabilities in motion control, embodied intelligent brain, dexterous hands, joints, etc.

Financing amount and round: 579 million yuan, C+ round

Company: Boreton

Field: Special robots

Time: January 2023

Investors: Hunan Xiangtan Caixin Chanxing Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), Tianjin Xingyue Puyu Technology Co., Ltd., Jiaxing Xuying Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), Jinhua Boredon Talent Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership)

Founded in 2016, Boreton can provide users with integrated green energy management solutions for wind and solar storage and transportation, pure electric construction machinery, mining trucks, heavy trucks and other innovative products, as well as solutions based on scenarios such as mines, ports, factories, and logistics parks. Boreton said that the equipment the company aims to provide customers is not a simple means of transportation, but a walking one.

Financing amount and round: Over 500 million yuan in Series A

Company: Yinniu Micro

Field: Visual processing chip

Time: November 2023

Investors: Hefei Industrial Investment and Precision Capital, Jinxi Capital, Tianyu Digital Technology, etc.

Yinniu Microelectronics was founded in August 2020, focusing on the design of visual processing and multi-fusion + chips and products. At present, Yinniu's chip and product solutions have been applied to pan-robots, metaverse, logistics drones, 3D scanning, virtual digital humans and other fields. (Click here for article details: Yinniu Microelectronics completed a round of A financing of more than 500 million yuan, led by Hefei Industrial Investment and Precision Capital)

More: Focus on upstream + sub-sectors

Gaogong Robot observed that when reviewing the financing situation in various fields of the robotics industry in 2023, it is not difficult to find that investors are gradually paying attention to more upstream industries and more subdivided product categories along the industrial chain.

丨Chip

Financing amount and round: tens of millions of yuan in strategic financing

Company: Zhongke Fusion

Field: AI+3D chips and modules

Time: end of 2023

Investors: Wanxun Automation, Hainan Mingfeng, etc.

Zhongke Fusion was incubated at the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and focuses on completely independently developed AI+3D chips and module products, building a closed-loop technology chain from "chip+AI algorithm+SOC chip". In the field of advanced machine vision, Zhongke Fusion will launch new products PIXEL series and MINI series in 2023.

Financing amount and round: C+ round of 100 million yuan

Company: Lingming Photonics

Field: 3D sensor chip

Time: February 2023

Investors: SAIC Venture Capital, etc.

Lingming Photonics was founded in May 2018 and successfully completed its first 3D stacked chip tape-out in 2021. Lingming Photonics has launched a series of SPAD products including SiPM, single-photon imaging arrays (SP), dToF modules, and limited-point dToF chips, and is accelerating the application of products in robotics, automatic control, human-computer interaction, smart cars and other fields.

Financing amount and round: 200 million yuan in Series D

Company: Zhaoguan Electronics

Field: Vision chips and modules

Time: December 2023

Investors: Huashan Capital, etc.

Founded in 2016, Zhaoguan Electronics is a technology company engaged in the design and terminal application of artificial intelligence processing chips. It is committed to giving all smart devices visual capabilities and has accumulated financing of over RMB 700 million. The VPU chip developed by Zhaoguan Electronics is different from traditional chips and is specifically designed to solve the pain point of pixel explosion.

丨Grinding/Spraying

Financing amount and round: tens of millions of yuan Pre-A round

Company: Blue Dot Touch

Field: Force sensor + polishing robot