36Kr Exclusive | Former DJI Senior Executives Bet on Personal Mobility Robots, With Total Financing Reaching Nearly 100 Million USD

Author | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Yuan Silai

36Kr has learned that Strutt, an AI intelligent hardware and robotics enterprise, recently completed its Pre-A+ round of financing, with total accumulated financing amount reaching nearly USD 100 million. This round of financing was jointly led by a globally leading mobility technology enterprise, investment funds under leading domestic internet enterprises, and representative industrial funds from the Greater Bay Area.

The funds raised in this round will be mainly used for R&D of personal physical AI technology, construction of global marketing and sales channels, as well as the mass production and delivery of EV1, the first personal intelligent mobility robot. Meanwhile, the company has officially launched its Chinese brand Angshou, with the first personal mobility robot officially named Angshou EV1 in the Chinese market. The business in the Chinese market is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2026, and registration for the first batch of test drives is now open.

Founded in 2023, Strutt is headquartered in Singapore, with its R&D and supply chain base located in China's Greater Bay Area.

Angshou's first personal mobility robot EV1 is designed for scenarios including families, communities, supermarkets and outdoor spaces. Equipped with a companion intelligent driving system composed of multi-modal sensors and a chassis system consisting of four motors, active steering and four-wheel independent suspension, the product can travel indoors and in urban public spaces, and can also pass through grasslands, gravel roads and some light non-paved roads.

The intelligentization of traditional micro-mobility and assistive mobility devices usually focuses on electrification and superposition of basic functions. Strutt aims to reduce users' control burden in complex environments: the machine continuously perceives the surrounding environment and judges the driving status, providing driving assistance and obstacle avoidance capabilities while retaining users' control rights.

The underlying logic of Angshou is not to manufacture a traditional mobility device, but to start from high-frequency, rigid-demand personal movement scenarios, and build a physical AI terminal that can continuously integrate into real life. EV1 is also equipped with multiple types of data interfaces. By adding robotic arms, end effectors and general multi-modal capabilities, EV1 is expected to gradually expand to personal and household tasks such as object retrieval, light carrying and clothes sorting.

In May this year, EV1 started mass production and delivery. According to Strutt, the company has currently achieved sales and delivery scale of millions of US dollars, no major customer complaints have been reported from the first batch of delivered users, and the return rate is 0. Relevant performance still needs to be further verified as the delivery scale expands.

As a new category with no mature reference architecture, the difficulty in mass production of EV1 does not lie in a single component, but in converting multi-modal sensors, four-motor drive, active steering, independent suspension, power batteries, edge computing and software systems into a stably replicable production system.

Hong Xiaoping, Founder and CEO of Strutt, told 36Kr that the team spent nearly three years completing product R&D and mass production preparation, and conducted verification in environments including low temperature, high altitude, gravel roads, grasslands and side slopes. The company also considered subsequent maintenance at the product design stage: software problems are handled through remote diagnosis and OTA upgrades, while hardware adopts modular design as much as possible to reduce cross-border repair of the whole vehicle.

At present, EV1's business has covered dozens of countries and regions around the world. Strutt previously gave priority to the European and American markets because the local personal mobility device market is relatively mature, and users have higher awareness of assistive technology and mobility autonomy. The company first verified the release, test drive, purchase, delivery and service links overseas, and then brought relevant experience back to China.

However, for new categories with high unit price and heavy experience, it is difficult to complete user education only through parameters and videos. Strutt has established test drive, community activity and partner networks in key overseas cities, taking "reach - test drive - payment" as the main conversion path. The company disclosed that the current conversion rate of EV1 from test drive to payment is close to 50%.

In the early stage of product design, Strutt also established a core user community to bring the product into real usage scenarios such as families, neighborhood commuting and travel, and continuously optimize the product around operation, mapping, intelligent driving, seat adaptation and service experience.

In Hong Xiaoping's view, Strutt is not making a functionally improved mobility tool, but defining a brand-new species that deeply integrates perception, decision-making, control and power systems. It will first truly help users move, and in the future, it will become an AI terminal that can understand the environment, understand demands and complete personal physical tasks.

CEO Dialogue

36Kr: When consumers buy EV1, they are essentially paying for mobility capabilities. How should we understand the company's path from intelligent mobility robots to personal physical AI?

Hong Xiaoping: This judgment is correct. Consumers will not pay for the distant concept of "physical AI". The reason why they buy EV1 today is that it can provide a safer, more relaxed and more free mobility experience. Intelligent mobility must first become an independent viable product and business, and personal physical AI is the long-term direction of capability evolution, rather than a conceptual label for products at the current stage.

The reason why we choose to start from mobility is that mobility itself is the most basic and highest-frequency closed loop of physical AI. The device needs to perceive the environment, understand the user's intention, make decisions, and then complete the actions through the chassis.

This path is divided into three stages: the first stage is to optimize the mobility, safety and navigation capabilities; the second stage is to enable the terminal to more accurately understand what the user wants to do by combining the environment, user instructions and usage habits; the third stage is to add robotic arms and end effectors on the mobility chassis, gradually expanding from "carrying people to move" to tasks such as object retrieval, simple switch control and light carrying.

The mobility data accumulated by EV1 at present cannot directly replace the operation data of robotic arms, but it can establish real users, living environments, perception computing platforms, OTA systems and global service networks in advance. After the actuators are connected in the future, new operation data can be generated naturally on the same user, same environment and same terminal.

36Kr: After entering the Chinese market, will you directly copy the product and sales model of the European and American markets?

Hong Xiaoping: No. Our strategy is "one global technology platform plus in-depth regional localization". The underlying intelligent driving, perception computing, power control and software architecture can be shared, but product configuration, regulations, pricing, channels and after-sales services all need to be adjusted to local conditions.

We hope to build a complete closed loop of test drive, sales, delivery, service and user community in each core market, rather than just exporting hardware to local areas. Europe and the United States help us verify the new category and consumer business model, while China has a complete supply chain, rich urban life scenarios and long-term demands.