Zhu Xiaohu has participated in three consecutive rounds of investment, and 50 institutions are queuing up. This company has raised hundreds of millions again.
Looking back at the end of the year, I found that the term "Embodied Intelligence" has even transcended the narrow definition of a "track" and made it onto the list of the top ten buzzwords of 2025 released by the editorial department of Yao Wen Jiao Zi. The protagonist announcing financing today is also an embodied intelligence enterprise. However, it doesn't focus on humanoid robots, which are the most well - known in the public eye, but on marine robots capable of operating in extreme underwater environments at depths of up to 10,000 meters.
In May, I reported on the financing news of Shihang Intelligence, a marine embodied intelligence enterprise. Now, here's the follow - up. We've exclusively learned that within three months of consecutively completing the Angel + round and Pre - A round of financing, Shihang Intelligence has completed multiple rounds of financing worth hundreds of millions of yuan.
The Series A financing was led by Vertex Ventures, with follow - on investments from Changshi Capital and Suzhou Venture Capital Group (Suzhou Mother Fund), and additional investment from existing shareholder GSR Ventures. The Pre - A+ round was invested by Jinglue Venture Capital. Anyu Capital serves as the company's long - term exclusive financial advisor. This series of financing aims to help the company accelerate product and technology iteration and promote the mass production of embodied robots and core components.
How popular is this company, which has been established for just over two years, in the primary market? Well, after the cases of Didi and Xiaohongshu, Zhu Xiaohu has invested in the same project for three consecutive rounds. At a reading club event for The History of Chinese Venture Capital last week, Mr. Zhu couldn't help but praise Shihang again. Another detail I learned is that after a recent roadshow, the number of investment institutions queuing to meet the founder, Chen Xiaobo, reached 50.
Vertex Ventures entered the scene as the sole institutional investor in the Pre - A round of Unitree. They are also the lead investor in Shihang's Series A round. Xia Zhijin, the managing partner of Vertex Ventures, told me that the reason for the investment is that the inflection point for technology commercialization has arrived. As early as 2018, he started to pay attention to underwater and marine vessel robots. However, that was a bit too early. The technology hadn't developed to a level that matched real - world demands, and commercialization couldn't be scaled up. The core pain points at that time were that there was limited room to control labor costs, the practical application effects of underwater robots were not ideal, the operation efficiency was low, and they couldn't operate independently.
"After five or six years of technological precipitation, there have been breakthroughs in both hardware and software. The iteration speed of hardware has been remarkable, and the software has developed in a more intelligent direction, such as seabed environment recognition, significantly improving operation efficiency. Last year, we reviewed the entire industry, and Shihang is the team we're most optimistic about. They are internationally leading in some technologies," said Xia Zhijin.
This change is reflected in Shihang's commercialization capabilities. "The company's revenue this year is twice that of last year, and we expect to turn a profit next year. We expect to mass - produce over a hundred robots in the first half of next year, and our industrialization capabilities will reach over 70% of the world's marine robot market," revealed Chen Xiaobo.
For detailed basic information about Shihang, please refer to "After 'Exiting the Humanoid Field in Bulk', Zhu Xiaohu Invested in an Underwater Robot". Half a year has passed. I invited Chen Xiaobo to update the company's progress and also talked to him about his personal experience:
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First of all, in terms of technology R & D, Shihang's robots have gone through two more iterations, significantly improving their operation capabilities. As previously mentioned, since underwater robots face complex environments such as waves, currents, surges, high salt, high pressure, and high corrosion, the difficulty and threshold of technological breakthroughs are no lower than those of humanoid robots. According to Chen Xiaobo, Shihang's Orca robot is currently the only robot in the world capable of operating with full degrees of freedom in real - world marine environments. Compared with overseas competitors like Hullwiper, it can achieve five times the work efficiency at 1/10 of the cost and 1/4 of the weight and volume.
I'm not an expert in hardcore technology. Let's see how professional organizations evaluate Shihang's technological level.
In August, the project "General Marine Robots and Intelligent Core Equipment for Port and Shipping" jointly developed by Shihang, China Merchants Energy Shipping Co., Ltd., Shandong Port Group, and Harbin Engineering University won the "First Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress" from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, the highest award in China's logistics technology field.
In the same month, the research result of "AI - driven Underwater Cleaning and Inspection Robot" developed by Shihang won the "First Prize for Scientific and Technological Achievements" from the China Association for Science and Technology.
In September, Shihang won the national championship in the first Embodied Intelligence Professional Competition of the 14th China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition organized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
In November, Shihang's Orca Marine Embodied Robot was appraised as "internationally leading" by a panel of experts from various industries, including the International Air Sports Federation, the Waterborne Transport Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, the China Institute of Navigation, the Maritime Safety Administration of China, the China Classification Society, the National Standardization Administration, Dalian Maritime University, Shanghai Maritime University, the Yangtze River Waterway Bureau, the Navy Submarine Academy, and Northwestern Polytechnical University.
In addition, Shihang has been successively recognized as a national high - tech enterprise, a national standard innovation - oriented enterprise, and a potential unicorn in Jiangsu Province, accumulating over 300 intellectual property certifications. During the China International Import Expo in Shanghai, Shihang's robots were responsible for underwater security work in the core waters of the Huangpu River, demonstrating their operation capabilities in high - sensitivity scenarios.
The long R & D cycle is a key bottleneck restricting the development of the marine embodied intelligence industry. Shihang's advantage lies in the fact that Chen Xiaobo was involved in many major national projects during his university years. He has already paid most of the "tuition fees" in terms of R & D trial - and - error costs and technology path exploration, so there's no need to take many detours.
In Xia Zhijin's evaluation, Chen Xiaobo has been involved in the field of underwater robots for nearly twenty years, and this kind of experience and seniority are extremely rare in the industry.
Since the first prototype was developed, Shihang has been able to generate revenue through actual use. Therefore, for a long time, the company didn't rely on financing for survival. It only started to seek further external financing when preparing for large - scale development.
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While humanoid robots are still generally exploring how to be applied in real - world scenarios, the marine scenario has real demand for robots to replace humans and commercialization potential.
In the shallow sea area of 0 - 300 meters, the products focus on the maintenance of marine infrastructure. The most typical example is the underwater cleaning of ships, which is an existing and necessary scenario. Marine organisms such as barnacles tend to grow on ship hulls, which not only reduces the ship's speed but also increases fuel consumption. Conventionally, ships need to be cleaned at least once a year, and the cost of a single manual cleaning can be as high as 150,000 yuan. Traditional cleaning methods either require towing the ship to a shore - based dock or rely on divers carrying oxygen supply equipment to work under high pressure at a depth of ten to twenty or thirty meters. This is not only risky and costly but also inefficient. It usually takes about 10 days to completely clean a ship.
Underwater cleaning robots have changed this situation: For a 100,000 - ton ship, efficient cleaning can be completed in 10 hours. Taking the cooperation case with Fujian Shipping as an example, after the ship was cleaned, its speed increased by 2 knots, and the daily fuel consumption was reduced by 100,000 yuan. That is to say, after the customer pays 100,000 yuan for cleaning, the cost can be recovered through fuel savings in one day. In the past, ships were usually cleaned only when their speed decreased significantly. Now, due to the fuel - saving benefits, customers have significantly increased the cleaning frequency. In other words, long - term and stable cooperation demand is expected.
In terms of the business model, users pay according to the number of cleanings and pay for the results. This part of the income forms the lower limit of Shihang's revenue. Shihang originally planned to set up points in 4 ports this year, but it has actually completed the layout in 7 world - class ports. The robots have completed the high - efficiency maintenance of thousands of large ships and have been deployed by customers such as China Merchants Energy Shipping and COSCO Bulk.
This is partly due to the support of shareholder resources. Shihang's financing has gathered the strength of the government, central state - owned enterprises, industrial groups, and market - oriented institutions. For example, Singapore, as an international shipping center, has a huge demand for ship cleaning and underwater inspection. It was through the introduction of the investor Vertex Ventures that Shihang was able to communicate and cooperate with Singapore's ST Engineering.
Can the ship - cleaning scenario give birth to a unicorn? I once talked to an investor friend who focuses on embodied intelligence about this topic. The friend said they were concerned, but they were still waiting to see how large the market space is and what the upper limit is.
Expanding new scenarios beyond ship cleaning has been the company's focus in the past six months. Based on the same general - purpose embodied platform and the ability to operate in extreme underwater environments at depths of up to 10,000 meters, Shihang has extended its business to fields such as marine photovoltaics, offshore wind power, submarine pipelines, and port pile foundation inspections. Its service network covers major marine cities in China and has also entered international markets in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Among them, the marine photovoltaic robot has been implemented and won the bid for a project of the China National Nuclear Corporation, and the offshore wind power robot has been implemented in cooperation with CIMC. Technical reserves and solution verifications have also been completed for scenarios such as deep - sea mineral exploration and seabed data center maintenance.
This year, deep - sea technology, along with commercial spaceflight and low - altitude economy, was written into the Government Work Report as an emerging industry. Whether it's deep - sea technology or the marine economy, it's definitely a broad - prospect theme. However, there are reasons why it hasn't been fully developed in the past.
In Chen Xiaobo's view, overseas similar enterprises position marine robots as "marine engineering equipment." The product forms are mostly box - shaped or bulky designs similar to large tanks, which are essentially single - function operation tools. The marine environment is complex and changeable, and the operation scenarios from 0 to 10,000 meters are very different. According to traditional thinking, to meet the needs of the entire sea area and all scenarios, it may be necessary to develop tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of specialized robots, which is neither economical nor efficient in reality.
Shihang's solution is to regard marine robots as "productive forces" themselves. With a general - purpose platform as the core and different functional operation modules, it can adapt to various scenarios and achieve all - season and all - weather operation capabilities. It's precisely because of this "platform + module" general - purpose design that the company has been able to expand into the fields of marine photovoltaics and wind power within half a year and is still continuously expanding the boundaries of marine services.
In Xia Zhijin's view, technological accumulation can build a moat to support them in expanding more application scenarios. "Whether it's in the ship, photovoltaic, or aquaculture scenarios, the core technical routes required are similar, and only the requirements for specific technical indicators differ."
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Finally, let's talk about Chen Xiaobo himself. Just as when we wrote The History of Chinese Venture Capital, we didn't want to write a "record of merits" but rather strived to restore "the situation at that time" through various discussions. When I want to write about an entrepreneur, I'm not trying to praise how successful he is - it's not time to tell yet - but rather to restore the trajectory of an entrepreneur.
Chen Xiaobo thinks his experience is not worth mentioning because the public prefers legendary and tortuous stories. His academic career has been smooth all the way. Even when he first started his business and was unknown and made many mistakes everywhere, he didn't think it was hard and couldn't remember or tell those difficulties, which are often necessary elements for an interesting and easily spreadable story.
But in my opinion, when placed in the context of "scientists starting businesses," Chen Xiaobo's profile isn't completely blurred. He has both typical and atypical aspects.
His typicality lies in his outstanding resume. He graduated from Harbin Engineering University, a well - known marine university. He has been focusing on marine robots for 18 years. He was recognized as a full - senior engineer at the age of 35, led over 20 major national and provincial projects, won the championship of the China Robotic Competition for three consecutive sessions, is a "Young Scientist for a Maritime Power," and is the youngest recipient of the First Prize for National Defense Science and Technology Progress.
However, there has always been a difficult - to - cross gap between the ivory tower of scientific research theory, the front - line industry of technology implementation, and the cruel competition in the commercial market. Chen Xiaobo's atypicality is that he seems to have easily crossed those hurdles.
In looking back at his personal experience, I tried to find some perhaps inaccurate clues for this atypicality:
His father was one of the earliest entrepreneurs after China's reform and opening - up. He started with a 2,000 - yuan bank loan, opened a restaurant, and ran a coal factory, a knitting factory, and a gas station. His father's experience of struggling in the market wave may have subtly influenced his market thinking.
During his studies, he joined the E - Wei Association at Harbin Engineering University. Most entrepreneurs from this university emerged from this association. Its slogan is "Enhance abilities through practice," which further shaped his way of doing things.
As a serial entrepreneur, he got the necessary training in his previous two entrepreneurial experiences. For a long time, he did R & D during the day and attended business dinners at night. He had grand visions and was also flexible.
Adapting to the market and barely surviving is one kind of life. Finding one's talent and mission early and moving forward along the planned goals is another kind of life. Some people enjoy the experience, while others pursue achievements. I don't think there's a difference in the quality of these two kinds of lives. Chen Xiaobo is obviously the latter, or at least in this stage.
He loved tinkering with electrical appliances when he was a child, taking apart TVs, cameras, and washing machines. He was just like the prototype of a young scientist in celebrity biographies. But he also has an atypical side. At the age of four or five, he would lie in bed thinking about seemingly out - of - the - box philosophical questions: "Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?" This is very different from the stereotypical image of a male science - major student.
In middle school, even in a boarding school in Hebei with semi - military management, he still read a lot of miscellaneous books. He read all the works of Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng, and also read economics and political science books as if they were storybooks, getting exposed to many economic concepts. His core thinking from this is that the essence of the economy is value exchange, the key to economic prosperity is the speed of exchange, and the fundamental basis is productivity. The world is driven forward by productivity. In his view, in the future, society will enter a highly developed state, which must be a state where productivity is extremely abundant and people don't have to worry about food and clothing.
This technological optimism and the desire to transform the world are the most typical ways of thinking for technology entrepreneurs in our era. Classical economics and Marxist political economy are the sources of his thoughts. Tracing back further, there are also shadows of Plato's theory of ideas. All specific things are imitations of ideas, so we can always find the defects of specific things. Then, let's transform the world based on ideas.
In short, the goal of "creating future productivity" was set when he was choosing his major after high school. As evidence, when he participated in the National Challenge Cup Competition, he was on the front - page headline of the special section on the Challenge Cup in China Youth Daily. When a reporter asked him what he wanted to do in the future, his answer was to start a business in the field of robots. That was in 2009. He even further thought that land only accounts for a little over 20% of the Earth's surface area, but the industries on land are relatively saturated. The ocean, which accounts for over 70% of the Earth's area, is still an untapped blue ocean. Thus, he locked in the vast marine field.
This is the origin of Chen Xiaobo's entrepreneurship.
Finally, let's see how the investors evaluate Shihang Intelligence:
Xia Zh