Dozens of institutions competed for it. The project jointly incubated by New Hope and FeiXi completed its angel round of financing.

In the food scenario, it is no longer a problem for robots to make coffee and handle tofu nowadays.

So, what if we ask robots to assemble a boxed meal like experienced canteen ladies, make a crispy - on - the - outside and tender - on - the - inside cod cake, or perform precise cutting like a seasoned master chef? What lies behind this is the rapid coordination of vision, arms, and the "brain." It also tests how to teach a robot the precise know - how, just like training a novice chef.

On January 29th, Touzhongwang learned that Xixi Intelligence, an embodied company focusing on the food processing industry, announced the completion of a tens - of - millions angel round of financing. The lead investor in this round was Ningbo Beilun Commerce and Logistics Investment Group, and the follow - on investors were Rongcheng Rongxin Fund and Shengjing Jiacheng.

The company was jointly incubated by New Hope Intelligent Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and FeiXi Technology, a unicorn in the general robotics field. New Hope Intelligent is an incubation and investment platform under New Hope Group, a diversified industrial group centered around agriculture and food, focusing on the artificial intelligence and robotics sectors. Thanks to its unique industrial background, the company had already generated tens of millions in orders at the angel round stage. It is reported that the funds from this round of financing will be used for product R & D, strengthening AI, project promotion, and talent recruitment.

The Invisible Dark Horse in the Food Processing Industry

Different from most stories in the market, Xixi's story began with a regular post - investment service.

In 2020, FeiXi Technology officially announced a $100 million Series B financing. In this financing, New Hope, as an industrial investor, participated for the first time. According to Dr. Liu Xu, the co - founder and chairman of Xixi Intelligence and the chairman of New Hope Intelligent, as a diversified company, New Hope has always been very concerned about the technology industry and has successively invested in a series of robotics companies, and FeiXi Technology is one of them.

At that time, FeiXi positioned itself as a general robotics manufacturer and explored and implemented applications in industries such as 3C electronics, automotive and home appliances, food and agriculture, biomedicine, aerospace, and new energy.

Later, as the cooperation between the two parties deepened, FeiXi, as an invested company of New Hope, began to explore the application space of flexible robots in New Hope's food processing scenarios. In Liu Xu's words, "If we only focus on some automation solutions and New Hope simply purchases equipment on its own, this business model underestimates the potential of the food processing industry."

So, New Hope Intelligent and FeiXi Technology decided to establish a joint - venture company. That is, by combining New Hope's rich scenarios and understanding of the food processing industry with FeiXi's technology and products, they aimed to create a vertical artificial intelligence robotics company serving the entire food processing industry.

In Liu Xu's view, this joint - venture model itself is an innovative paradigm. It represents both the exploration of new business by a traditional enterprise and the implementation of general robotics in a vertical field.

Another fact is that the food processing industry is a labor - intensive sector. For a long time, this industry has been highly dependent on labor. In recent years, the labor force has decreased significantly, leading to rising costs. At the same time, the overall demand and production of the food industry have been continuously increasing in recent years.

This disparity between the decrease in labor and the increase in demand has exposed the labor shortage in the food industry.

Against this background, Xixi Intelligence was officially established in 2022. Of course, in addition to New Hope Intelligent and FeiXi, the company also has a founding team. Therefore, Mao Liang, the current CEO of Xixi, who has rich experience in the robotics and data industries, was introduced.

To outsiders, with the support of scenarios and technology, Xixi seems to have a head - start far higher than its peers. However, in reality, it's both yes and no.

New Hope can mainly provide know - how, while FeiXi contributes technical support mainly in force control. These two are just the prerequisites for entering the intelligent food processing industry. Although FeiXi's robotic arms are excellent, corresponding process packages need to be developed. On the scenario side, since most operations in the food processing industry are still manual, many issues regarding informatization and automation in these operations remain unsolved, not to mention flexible operations.

So, the first problem Mao Liang encountered at the beginning of the company's establishment was to develop original technologies and products and build a team.

In terms of technology, the food industry has some inherent strict requirements. Food safety is the bottom line. For equipment, the more difficult requirements are water and corrosion resistance. The food processing industry has extremely high environmental requirements. High - frequency disinfection is required, the humidity needs to reach over 80%, and it also has to coexist with corrosive liquids. As a result, many precision devices cannot work for a long time.

To overcome this difficulty, Xixi spent more than a year finding and developing a hardware solution that can maintain computing power, operate stably, and adapt to this environment.

Of course, the most challenging part was recruitment. Mao Liang mentioned, "When we first started building the team, it was basically impossible to recruit the most suitable people. Those who understand the food industry don't understand technology, and those who understand technology have no experience in this industry. So, most of the time, we recruited engineers in technology and algorithms from industries such as automotive, industrial, and Internet, and then taught them how to work in the food industry. It was truly starting from scratch."

Looking back now, the Xixi team feels lucky that the company was established just in time for the new wave of the AI boom, which laid the foundation for the complete modeling of ingredients and processes, the adaptability and cost of products, and even rapid delivery.

A Multi - functional Food Processing Station, Achieving Commercialization in Two Years

What exactly can Xixi's products do?

According to the official statement, Xixi provides a new type of general - purpose single - station food processing system that combines "vision, brain, and hand." Its core function is to accurately identify complex raw materials for flexible processing, supporting multi - functionality in a single machine. The four specific core functions are as follows:

Inline processing: Food processing plants operate on assembly lines. This equipment can, like workers, follow established procedures, respond to the ingredients it "sees," and complete the processing process.

Intelligent weighing: Almost all food products have weight specifications. In specific scenarios, there is a step of adjusting the weight. For example, for 500 grams of chicken wings, 5 pieces are not enough, but 6 pieces exceed the weight. The common solution is to take them out and re - arrange, which is very inefficient. If a flexible robotic arm is introduced, it can not only improve efficiency but also ensure stable quality, thereby reducing food waste and enterprise losses.

Intelligent meal assembly: For boxed meals, airline meals, sandwiches, etc., their characteristics are rapid changes. Each set meal may have a different composition, and new products are constantly being introduced. They need to be adjusted and assembled in a timely manner according to human logic.

Precise cutting: In factories, large - scale cutting machines have become standard equipment, but few can achieve high - precision cutting. Xixi's products can perform various cutting tasks, including cutting squid and cod. Even for beef patties in hamburgers and chicken thigh steaks, they can remove the bones, cut them into the corresponding size, weight, and shape, and finally complete the packaging.

Looking back at the development process of the entire product, in fact, in 2024, Xixi developed its first real - sense product, the Xingqi single - station and its underlying algorithm platform. As the first version developed by the team, this product met the delivery standards, enabling customers to use it and generating orders.

Also in 2024, Xixi stepped out of the protection of its shareholders and won its first external order, which came from a seafood processing enterprise. This enterprise is the supplier of the square cod patties in McDonald's Deep - Sea Cod Burgers, and cod processing is one of its core product categories.

There are many pain points in the cod processing industry. Cod meat is relatively soft. In the processing stage, it needs to be cut, coated with breadcrumbs, and then shaped. However, different customers have extremely different requirements for the shape and weight of cod products. McDonald's requires square - shaped cod patties, while some customers need round or diamond - shaped ones, and there are also different weight specifications. The requirement for controlling the shaping force is extremely high. If the force is too strong, it will cause the loss of moisture and oil in the fish meat, completely destroying the taste. If the force is insufficient, it cannot shape the standard form, making it difficult to meet the customized needs of customers.

Previously, this enterprise relied entirely on manual labor for cod processing. More importantly, the enterprise faced a serious labor shortage problem. The difficulty in recruiting workers directly led to the inability to meet order production capacity, which became its core operational pain point. It is reported that in the second half of 2024, they renewed their cooperation with Xixi and also replaced the equipment on another production line with Xixi's products.

The reason why Xixi was able to achieve rapid commercialization is that its products were not developed in the laboratory but were incubated in real - world scenarios, thus shortening the path from conceptual products to small - batch production and then to large - scale commercialization. With the release of products and the implementation of projects, Xixi began to receive a large number of market order requests.

In 2025, Xixi iterated the version of its original product, enabling it to have the ability of mass production. Its business model is a software - hardware integrated solution. In terms of product composition, Xixi mainly focuses on the visual capabilities, "big and small brains" of the products, and the system platform adapted to the food industry, and develops processes based on mature robotic arms.

Regarding 2026, Mao Liang also said bluntly that the company is in the expansion stage from 1 to 100. The most important thing is to replicate the projects on a large scale and promote commercialization. On the business side, meal assembly and weighing are scenarios with high demand and high commercial value, which will be continuously explored this year. At the same time, the company will also explore and implement some overseas business.

After Talking to Dozens of Institutions, Exceeded the Target in the Angel Round

Now, let's take a look at the specific investors in this round:

Ningbo Beilun Commerce and Logistics Investment Group is a state - owned enterprise under the jurisdiction of Ningbo Beilun District. The group undertakes the dual roles of investment and operation. Its past projects have mainly been concentrated in Ningbo Beilun District, especially in the core area of the Ningbo Area of the China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone, with investments mainly in the infrastructure of commerce and logistics and the supporting commercial and industrial service facilities.

This investment in Xixi Intelligence is its first move in early - stage technology projects. From the perspective of investment style, Ningbo Beilun Commerce and Logistics Investment Group is not only pursuing financial returns but also aims to make up for the shortcomings of Beilun District in commerce, modern logistics, and industrial support.

Rongcheng Rongxin Fund is a government - guided fund established in 2022 under the leadership of the Rongcheng Municipal Government, with a total scale of 2 billion yuan. It is positioned as a "fund - of - funds + direct investment" dual - driven model, mainly serving the transformation of old and new kinetic energies and the upgrading of the marine economy in the city. The fund is managed by Shandong Guorong Company.

This fund has participated in the investment of the Lanrun International Marine Food Industrial Park project. This industrial park is positioned to be built into a modern comprehensive marine food characteristic park integrating the deep - processing, R & D, and production of marine foods such as squid and seaweed.

From its past investment cases, the funds of Rongcheng Rongxin Fund have mainly flowed into two directions: local intelligent manufacturing and marine food scenarios. Combined with Xixi's experience in the seafood processing field with its flexible products, this perfectly matches Rongcheng Rongxin's project selection criteria.

Shengjing Jiacheng is an established fund that needs no further introduction, with deep layout in the field of cutting - edge technologies.

During this round of financing, the Xixi team contacted dozens of institutions. The enthusiasm of the capital market exceeded Xixi's expectations, and accordingly, the final financing amount was also more than the original plan.

When talking about announcing the angel round in the fourth year of its establishment, Mao Liang said that the company has business and shareholder support, so there is no large - scale capital gap from a financial perspective. Opening the financing window this time is also to test the company's value in the market. From the perspective of the team itself, it prefers industrial investors. At this stage, it hopes to expand the business on a larger scale. Of course, financial investors with a matching style are also welcome.

As we enter 2026, everyone is saying that the era of large - scale commercialization of embodied intelligence has arrived. In fact, beneath the surface, the battle for commercialization has already begun. And star projects with commercial revenue have taken the lead in getting the next - round entry ticket from capital.

This article is from the WeChat official account "East Forty Capital" (ID: DsstCapital). The author is Zhang Xue. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.