Offizielle Konkurrenz und versteckte Kämpfe im "Kreis der Freunde" von Humanoiden Robotern

Humanoid robots have bid farewell to the era of "going it alone," and the top - tier robot companies are frantically expanding their "friend circles."

After Zhiyuan Robotics and Hillhouse jointly established a fund and entered the VC arena, recently, they officially launched the recruitment for Zhiyuan's "Venture Capital Plan A." The plan aims to focus on incubating over 50 early - stage projects within three years.

We've noticed that recently, Zhiyuan also participated in the investment of an embodied intelligence company named "Xingyuanzhi." According to incomplete statistics from "Silicon - based Research Laboratory," including this investment, Zhiyuan has made nearly 20 external investments. These involve both direct investments in peers and key sectors such as motors, sensors, and downstream applications.

Another highly - regarded embodied intelligence enterprise, Galaxy Universal, also made intensive investments in two peer companies recently - Lanyue Dynamics, which focuses on multi - modal two - wheeled robots, and a robot enterprise in Suzhou called Yixing Robot.

In addition, robot manufacturers are looking for cooperation partners in various forms, including but not limited to establishing joint ventures with listed companies, obtaining orders, finding application scenarios, and some are rapidly expanding the market, collaborating with state - owned assets and local industrial chain resources to directly introduce robots into factories.

Frantically looking for friends is both an obvious move and a hidden battle for robot manufacturers. On the one hand, it can quickly expand the market and form a closed - loop of "production, R & D - commercialization" in real scenarios. On the other hand, through in - depth cooperation with all parties in the upstream and downstream industrial chains, a more stable supply chain network can be found for future large - scale shipments.

01 Obvious Move: Making Money, Getting Orders, and Mending Weaknesses

The reason behind the top - tier robot companies' move to "expand their friend circles" and enter the VC arena is not complicated.

From the perspective of transaction characteristics, investing in early - stage projects and the industrial chain has become the collective consensus of robot manufacturers.

Among the companies that Zhiyuan has participated in investing and incubating, the investment rounds are mainly concentrated in the early stage. According to official data, 70% are at the registration round, 20% at the seed round, and 10% at the angel round. The two public investments of Galaxy Universal are also at the angel and seed rounds.

Image source: Zhiyuan

Behind the early - stage investment is Zhiyuan's insight into the current industrial chain. Currently, embodied intelligence is still in the early stage of development. The industry cycle is long, projects are blooming, and hot money is still pouring in. Entrepreneurs are still vying for opportunities at the table.

Companies like Zhiyuan, which have raised funds and entered the top - valuation camp, not only learn how to raise and make money but also need to learn how to spend it.

Previously, Deng Taihua, the CEO of Zhiyuan Robotics, said that the company is in a state of "able to raise funds whenever it wants." "Even without any revenue, the normal business can maintain operations for three years." With sufficient cash flow, Zhiyuan has the confidence to spend money to build an ecosystem.

Investing in early - stage projects can, on the one hand, make money and bring good financial returns.

According to Deng Taihua, Zhiyuan has achieved an 8 - fold annualized return on investment from its "early and small - scale investment" layout. We've noticed that many star projects have emerged in Zhiyuan's investment portfolio - including Shouxing Technology, which has completed three rounds of financing this year, Qianjue Robot, which completed the Series A+ round in September this year, and Lingchu Intelligence, which completed the Pre - A round in May.

Products of Shouxing Technology. Image source: Shouxing Technology

An unnamed VC told us that it's not a bad thing for Zhiyuan to enter the investment field on its own, and there's nothing to be surprised about: "They have money on their books, and they know each other well in the circle. Investment is an indirect way to secure a position in the future and enhance their own influence."

On the other hand, compared with going it alone, a robot is a combination of "body, cerebellum, and brain." To establish a closed - loop of "perception - cognition - decision - action," it requires the cooperation of high - performance motors, high - precision reducers, sensors, and chip platforms from the upstream, and it also needs to enter real scenarios. By obtaining orders, it can promote technological upgrading and data collection, and ultimately achieve a steady expansion of production capacity.

In other words, on this complex industrial chain, currently, no single body manufacturer can be all - knowing and all - powerful. Through cooperation with upstream and downstream enterprises, it can bring visible orders to companies like Zhiyuan and make up for their weaknesses in subsequent competitions.

Most leading robot manufacturers "make friends" with upstream and downstream enterprises by establishing joint ventures, making strategic investments, and setting up equity investment funds. Specifically, these friends can be divided into four categories -

The first category is enterprises with physical scenarios that can help robot manufacturers achieve PoC verification and commercialize their products.

For example, the cooperation between Zhiyuan and Fuling Precision Industry will directly lead to nearly a hundred Yuanzheng A2 - W robots being deployed in Fuling Precision Industry's factory.

Another example is the joint venture "Boyinhechuang" established by Galaxy Universal and Bosch, which explores the implementation of intelligent robots in the automobile manufacturing process.

Recently, Zhifang also announced a cooperation with Shenzhen Huizhi IoT Technology Service Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of semiconductor display panel manufacturer HKC. Over the next three years, more than 1000 embodied intelligent robots will be deployed in HKC's global production bases, covering the entire process from warehousing and logistics, material handling, parts assembly to quality inspection and testing.

According to incomplete statistics from "Silicon - based Research Laboratory," currently, there are implementation cases of robots in fields such as automobiles, healthcare, retail, logistics, lithium batteries, and photovoltaics.

The second category is enterprises with product and channel experience. Robot enterprises jointly develop products with them and use their customer networks and channel resources to expand the market. Typical examples are the cooperation between Zhiyuan andisoftstone and Greenworks.

The third category is core suppliers in the industrial chain. Robot enterprises form a more stable supply chain network by investing in and participating in upstream enterprises. For example, there is a two - way capital injection between Wolong Electric Drive and Zhiyuan, and an investment in Fuxing Motor, a servo motor manufacturer.

The fourth category is enterprises with typical technological advantages in niche fields, which can make up for the technological weaknesses of robot manufacturers.

Image source: Official website of Yixing Robot

Chen Yuanpei, the co - founder of Lingchu Intelligence, once talked about the purpose of Zhiyuan's investment in an interview. It was precisely because they valued Lingchu Intelligence's reinforcement learning ability.

Another company, Yixing Robot, in which Galaxy Universal participated in the investment, is backed by the Geely ecosystem. In addition, we've learned that Yixing Robot has data collection factories in Suzhou and Hangzhou, which can undertake data collection tasks. This may form a synergistic effect for Galaxy Universal, which has not built its own data collection factory.

02 Hidden Battle: Two Routes, Different Ecosystems

Behind the expansion of the friend circle is actually a hidden battle in the "pre - dawn" of the robot industry.

Wang Xingxing, the founder of Unitree Robotics, sees it clearly. He said, "The pre - dawn is actually quite troublesome. The biggest problem is that the technical routes of various companies in the industry vary greatly, and everyone has their own ideas. This makes the field very lively, but the overall progress is not that fast."

Some investors compare the current development stage of embodied intelligence to the stage of autonomous driving (L4) seven or eight years ago: "The financing rhythm is fast, but the commercial implementation is still relatively slow."

Currently, there are only two robot enterprises in China with a valuation of over 10 billion yuan - Zhiyuan Robotics (15 billion yuan) and Unitree Robotics (about 12 billion yuan). Those aiming for a 10 - billion - yuan valuation are Galaxy Universal, Mech-Mind Robotics, and Fourier Intelligence. In the early stage of the industry, robot manufacturers that can continuously obtain financing must occupy positions in advance, strengthen the embodied intelligence technology stack, and solidify the industrial chain. It's understandable for them to invest externally in various forms and build an ecosystem.

However, the players in the "10 - billion - yuan valuation club" are clearly divided into two camps in this hidden battle: one is the "aggressive players" like Zhiyuan, and the other is the "calm players" such as Unitree Robotics and Mech - Mind Robotics.

Behind the different attitudes is the difference in the understanding of the path and ecosystem.

After introducing "Huawei - affiliated executives," Zhiyuan established a full - stack technology path of "robot body + AI" for robots. On the production side, Zhiyuan built its own factory, and on the data side, it also has its own data collection factory.

In addition, on the application - scenario side, different from many robot manufacturers that focus on a single route, Zhiyuan chose a multi - pronged and hardware - software integrated strategy of "laying eggs along the way." According to Deng Taihua's previous statement, Zhiyuan has selected seven scenarios for layout. In addition to the "movement, grasping, and placement" capabilities in the industrial and retail sectors, the scenarios provided by Zhiyuan also include cultural and entertainment performances, robotic dogs, and commercial cleaning.

This high - profile approach also forces Zhiyuan to pay more attention to strengthening the supply chain and ecosystem layout.

Meanwhile, Huawei - affiliated executives are good at handling relationships with integrators. Their knowledge of large customers, project management, supply chain, and production processes is also Zhiyuan's current relative advantage.

Another robot enterprise, Galaxy Universal, which also advocates a hardware - software integrated and high - profile approach, is the same.

In addition to its expertise in the retail scenario, Galaxy Universal jointly established a joint venture "Boyinhechuang" with Bosch China and Boyuan Capital (Bosch Group's market - oriented investment platform) to promote the industrialization of embodied intelligence technology in the automobile and industrial manufacturing fields.

In the healthcare scenario, Galaxy Universal also established an "Active Health Embodied Intelligence Robot Joint Laboratory" with Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University and carried out in - depth cooperation with West China Second University Hospital of Sichuan University.

In contrast, Unitree Robotics and Mech - Mind Robotics, which are rather calm in external investment, also have their own differentiated understandings.

Unitree Robotics, driven by hardware, adopts a vertical integration strategy and has achieved self - research on core components such as motors, reducers, controllers, and lidars. Compared with the mutual binding of Zhiyuan and the supply chain ecosystem, it emphasizes more on the self - controllability of the supply chain.

Mech - Mind Robotics focuses on selling standardized products. Its self - developed "hand - eye - brain" platform, including the Mech - GPT multi - modal large - model, high - precision 3D cameras, and multi - finger hands, has been implemented in real scenarios, and its intelligent vision system has been deployed in thousands of scenarios.

Mech - Mind Robotics' AI vision - guided sack unstacking in a pharmaceutical factory. Image source: Mech - Mind Robotics

It's certain that the battle among robot manufacturers to expand their friend circles has just begun.

On the one hand, in terms of hardware and software, there are no unified standards in the industry. Each company is obtaining real - scenario data feedback by deeply exploring one or two vertical scenarios or multiple scenarios simultaneously, thereby establishing a business closed - loop and a data flywheel, and forming a stable embodied intelligence technology stack in specific scenarios.

On the other hand, on the supply - chain side, the maturity of the entire embodied intelligence supply chain is still in the early stage. Previously, Yao Maoqing, a partner of Zhiyuan and the president of the embodied business department, said: "Many suppliers have produced related products, but customizing products for humanoid robots to meet requirements such as load, torque, size, and weight is a relatively slow process."

Therefore, body manufacturers must explore the path of supply - chain upgrading and standardization with suppliers to truly put robots into use.

In the foreseeable future, robot manufacturers and the industrial chain will still adopt the "learning while moving forward" approach. A highly - specialized supply - chain ecosystem has not yet been formed, and it's impossible to achieve it with just 5 or 10 enterprises.

As mentioned above, expanding the friend circle is not a bad thing. In any business world, it's difficult to succeed without the support of friends.

*Cover image: "WALL - E"

This article is from the WeChat official account "Silicon - based Research Laboratory." Author: kiki. Republished by 36Kr with permission.