Li Auto Invests in Qianjue Robotics; Yixing Robot Reported Dissolved; UBTECH Wins Multiple Orders | Weekly Tech Roundup

1. Qiánjué Robotics Completes 100 Million RMB Pre-A Round of Financing

On October 16, Qiánjué Robotics announced the completion of a 100 million RMB Pre-A round of financing, marking its third financing round this year. This round was led by Futeng Capital (Shanghai Embodied AI Fund), with participation from well-known market-oriented institutions such as industry partner Li Auto, Binfu Capital, and Keshi Capital. Existing shareholders including Hillhouse Venture Partners, Yuhe Origin, and Gobi Ventures continued to increase their stakes.

Looking back, in May this year, Qiánjué Robotics completed a tens-of-millions RMB angel round of financing, invested in by Gobi Ventures and Yuhe Origin among others.

In February of the same year, Qiánjué Robotics completed an angel round of financing invested by Zhiyuan Robot.

In October last year, Qiánjué Robotics also completed a tens-of-millions RMB angel round of financing. The lead investor was Hillhouse Venture Partners, with follow-on investment from PChome China and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Hanyuan Fund among others.

Qiánjué Robotics was established in May 2024, headquartered in Shanghai. It focuses on dexterous manipulation for AI agents, centered around multimodal tactile perception technology. Its founder, Ma Daolin, is an associate professor and doctoral supervisor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

In terms of products, Qianjue Robot has launched its self-developed multimodal high-precision tactile sensor G1-WS, which can be adapted to robotic grippers and provides multimodal, high-resolution tactile information with a density 800 times that of human fingertips.

2. Zhiyuan Launches New Product: Robot Elf G2

On October 16, Zhiyuan officially released the new product, Robot Elf G2, positioned as an industrial-grade interactive embodied operation robot. It features high-performance motion joints, high-precision torque sensors, and multimodal voice interaction capabilities. It can be applied in scenarios such as industrial material handling, precision operations, logistics sorting, and commercial guiding. Notably, before its official release, Elf G2 had already secured orders worth hundreds of millions of yuan and commenced initial commercial deliveries (on October 9, Longqi Technology placed an order for Zhiyuan's Elf G2 robot framework valued at hundreds of millions of yuan).

In terms of hardware, G2 is equipped with high-performance joint actuators, various types of sensors, and a high-performance AI computing platform, enabling omnidirectional obstacle avoidance across all scenarios and high-precision force-controlled operations.

Regarding mobility, its waist has three degrees of freedom, allowing it to perform bending, twisting, and lateral swaying movements similar to those of humans. Additionally, it is configured with the world's first cross-wrist force-control arm, with high-precision joint torque sensors integrated throughout the entire arm.

In terms of battery life, Elf G2 can autonomously return to charging stations for recharging and supports hot-swappable dual batteries, meeting the production line cycle requirements of factories operating 24 hours a day.

Furthermore, based on Zhiyuan's fully self-developed general foundation large model GO-1 and world model GE-1, G2's ability to handle complex and long-horizon tasks has been comprehensively enhanced.

During the media group interview following the release, Yao Maoqing, Partner, Senior Vice President, and President of the Embodied Business Department at Zhiyuan Robotics, shared his views on the Spirit G2 and the development of the robotics industry.

Regarding the positioning of the Spirit G2 and the Expedition A2, Yao Maoqing believes that their product positions do not conflict. The choice depends on customer needs: those who value anthropomorphic features will choose the bipedal Expedition A2, while those who prioritize stability and operational speed will opt for the wheeled Spirit G2.

Yao also stated that Zhiyuan places great importance on the overseas market, with the company aiming for overseas revenue to account for 30% or more of its total revenue.

Furthermore, he pointed out that if robot forms are to converge rapidly, it must happen through practical application scenarios; otherwise, discussions of convergence within laboratories remain castles in the air. Only on actual production lines can configurations and hardware issues be adjusted promptly according to circumstances.

3. OneStar Robotics Reported to Have Disbanded

On October 16, Quantum Bit reported that OneStar Robotics has disbanded. Its official WeChat account currently shows no updates.

Founded this past May, OneStar Robotics had been operating for only five months. In September, it completed a seed funding round worth hundreds of millions of yuan, with investors including BV Baidu Ventures and Tongchuang Weiye as market-oriented investors, Galaxy General and Landai Technology as industrial investors, and Zhongxin Group as "city co-progression" investors.

In August, the company also completed a financing round participated by investors such as Cao Cao Mobility and Jingneng Microelectronics.

And in terms of products, Yixing Robot launched the 'Star Wheel No. 1' wheeled dual-arm robot in August.

Technically, they have proposed the core strategy of "inverting AI." This strategy starts with actual tasks and capability boundaries, adjusting workflows, operating procedures, and production line layouts to train and iterate robots in real-world task scenarios, thereby continuously enhancing core AI capabilities.

4. UBTECH Continues to Secure Orders Worth 32 Million Yuan and 126 Million Yuan

In the past week, UBTECH has successively secured robot orders.

On October 15, UBTECH announced that it had officially signed a humanoid robot procurement contract with a certain A-share listed automotive technology company. The company will procure from UBTECH humanoid robot products and solutions totaling more than 32 million yuan, primarily featuring the latest Walker S2 model, covering factory manufacturing applications and supporting embedded data acquisition factory product services. This order is scheduled to be delivered within 2025.

On October 16, UBTECH won the bid for the 'Guangxi Embodied AI Data Collection and Testing Center Equipment Procurement and Installation' project, with an order value of 126 million yuan. According to the project plan, this procurement includes UBTECH's latest fully autonomous embodied AI humanoid robot, Walker S2, which features swappable batteries. The delivery is scheduled to be completed within 2025, following the signing of the contract.

As of now, UBTECH's Walker series humanoid robots have secured over 630 million yuan in orders for the year.