Accelerating Industrial Intelligent Design and Metamaterial Innovation, "Youjie Future" Completes Two Rounds of Tens of Millions of Yuan in Financing in Succession | Exclusive Report by 36Kr

Text | Zhang Bingbing

Editor | A Zhi

36Kr learned that Beijing Youjie Future Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Youjie Future") recently announced the successful completion of two consecutive rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of tens of millions of yuan. The A1 round was led by the Rainforest Fund of Zhongguancun Development Group, with Fengrui Capital participating. The A+ round was exclusively invested by Shanghai Heshi Family Capital. The funds will be used to strengthen the R & D team, accelerate product iteration, expand sales channels such as direct sales and agents, and speed up commercial transformation.

Founded in September 2020, "Youjie Future" is the first high - tech company in China to independently develop a new generation of cloud CAX intelligent design industrial software and metamaterial products. Its main product is a one - stop SaaS platform for design, simulation, optimization, and manufacturing based on the OptFuture software, which can be widely applied in industries such as aerospace and military, automotive, construction, and medical.

The R & D team members come from universities such as Tsinghua University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, and Wuhan University. Most of them have master's or doctoral degrees. In the past year, many research results have been published in international top - tier journals in the fields of heat transfer, materials science, and structural optimization.

Exploring Better Solutions for Industrial Design

In recent years, with the rapid development of technology and the acceleration of industrial upgrading, industries such as national defense and military, and new energy vehicles have put forward higher requirements for product weight reduction, heat dissipation, and service life. This has not only greatly increased the design difficulty but also brought new challenges to material innovation. Against this background, "Youjie Future" explores better solutions for industrial design with intelligent topology optimization and metamaterial design technology.

In industrial manufacturing, there are various structural design methods. However, traditional methods often involve a large amount of manual operation, with a complex design process and frequent iterations required. Topology Optimization (TO) technology breaks through the limitations of traditional experience - based design. It can redistribute materials within a given 3D geometric design space according to the rules set by designers, using mathematical algorithms to optimize the layout and structure, thereby achieving lightweight design, performance improvement, efficient material utilization, cost control, innovation drive, and sustainable development.

Zhang Haixi, the founder of "Youjie Future", believes that as the core technology of computation - driven design, topology optimization is gradually transforming from an auxiliary tool in traditional engineering to the core driving force of industrial innovation. Based on topology optimization technology, OptFuture, the core product of "Youjie Future", can achieve fully automatic intelligent design.

It is reported that OptFuture is a new - generation domestic CAE and generative design industrial software independently developed by the company, with an iteration speed of once a quarter. Compared with traditional CAE simulation software, the main highlight of OptFuture lies in the improvement of efficiency.

In terms of spatial grid technology, when traditional CAE software deals with the design of complex models in the automotive and aerospace industries (such as car bodies, battery packs, and engines), it uses finite element mesh generation, which has a slow processing speed and a high degree of manual participation, usually taking one or two weeks or even longer. In contrast, OptFuture's spatial grid technology can automatically generate high - quality meshes within seconds to minutes and quickly enter the simulation analysis stage.

Preview of OptFuture's default geometric grid

In the optimization module, OptFuture has developed an intelligent optimization module based on AI generative design. Taking the design of the Zhaozhou Bridge as an example, the traditional method requires repeated trial - and - error to meet various requirements, while OptFuture's module only needs to input the rectangular envelope and design requirements of the Zhaozhou Bridge to automatically optimize the optimal bridge structure scheme.

In addition, another highlight of OptFuture is its metamaterial design function.

The research and development of mainstream new materials are usually achieved through chemical means such as changing material ratios and adjusting molecular structures, with a long R & D cycle and difficulty in reverse - customizing according to requirements. As an artificially designed composite material, metamaterials endow materials with special properties beyond natural laws by adjusting the ordered structure of materials at key physical dimensions.

However, how to design this unique artificial structure is a major challenge. Taking automotive sound - insulation materials as an example, it is difficult to accurately guess what kind of pore structure shape and size can meet the sound - insulation requirements in traditional metamaterial design, which requires relying on manual experience and repeated experimental corrections. OptFuture, on the other hand, can reversely design a pore structure that meets the performance requirements from a solid structure according to the requirements and directly provide the optimal solution. At the same time, by integrating AI technology, the calculation cycle of metamaterials is shortened to a few hours.

Zhang Haixi believes that this technological path will be more in line with future development trends: "Many products in China's manufacturing industry are still in the stage of extensive design and mass production. However, in the next few years, with the successive service of high - end equipment such as sixth - generation fighter jets and the continuous improvement of performance requirements for new energy vehicles, the requirements for product performance and leading technologies will be higher and higher. This means that we can no longer simply imitate foreign technologies but need to gradually try to take the lead. Therefore, the demand for underlying software and material systems will also increase accordingly."

Seizing the Trendy Opportunities of Domestic Substitution and Integration of Design and Simulation

In the international industrial design software industry, potential unicorns have emerged. nTopology and ANSYS have achieved application implementation in multiple fields such as aerospace, automotive, medical, and consumer industries with 3D printing technology and engineering simulation technology respectively. In 2024, nTopology received investment from a venture capital firm under NVIDIA.

In the domestic industrial scenario, the cloud - based deployment of industrial software has promoted the improvement of users' willingness to pay, bringing opportunities for the commercialization of industrial software. On the other hand, issues such as the security of foreign software cloud services and the risk of supply interruption have prompted the shift towards domestic substitution of industrial software.

"The software versions used in domestic aerospace, military, and other fields are mostly more than a decade old, with a slow update speed, resulting in tools being 5 - 10 years behind. This is very unfriendly to the R & D of new - generation technologies or product iteration." Zhang Haixi also pointed out that industries with high requirements for data security, such as aerospace, military, automotive, and high - end equipment, prefer local private deployment.

This has also become the key application direction for "Youjie Future" to break through. In the commercial R & D process in these fields, "Youjie Future" focuses on improving the universality and reliability of the software, while abandoning the functions that have been matured in international software and only need minor modifications, and devoting all efforts to researching software functions that may be more urgently needed in the next five years.

Zhang Haixi believes that design and simulation will definitely be integrated in the next five years. "This is determined by the essence of enterprises' pursuit of faster R & D speed. We attach great importance to the integration of the design, simulation, and process chains, which is also the positioning of our software. The integration of design and simulation with new technologies such as topology optimization and AI can break through human limitations and achieve algorithm - driven design."

As of now, "Youjie Future" has accumulated more than 100 engineering cases and completed customer verification. In a robot design scheme, the product weight was 152.8 kg before optimization, and after topology optimization, the weight was reduced by 76% to 37.3 kg.

Topology optimization design case

Facing the rapid development trend of AI, Zhang Haixi frankly said that AI currently plays more of an auxiliary role in the industry, mainly reflected in reducing the dependence on manual experience and automating basic work. At the underlying level, due to the relative confidentiality of industrial design data, the dependence of products on large models is not high. However, "Youjie Future" will integrate AI technology into the solver to accelerate the solution, shorten the equation - solving time, and improve computational efficiency.

In terms of future planning, "Youjie Future" will increase investment in the in - depth development and combination of AI, metamaterials, and optimization algorithms to further establish its technological advantage. At the same time, in terms of sales, it will adopt a gradient expansion approach, giving priority to deploying sales or agent channels in heavy industrial areas such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing - Tianjin - Hebei region, and establishing benchmark cases for leading customers.

36Kr Future Industries

"36Kr Future Industries" continuously focuses on urban development, industrial transformation, and the implementation of innovation and entrepreneurship projects. For media coverage, please contact wangfengzhi@36kr.com via email.

In addition, 36Kr officially launched the "36Kr Enterprise Investment Guide Newsletter" this year. Relying on its deep accumulation in the economic circle industrial clusters, regional key promotion plans, and investment promotion fields, 36Kr provides in - depth, detailed, timely, and exclusive comprehensive information services to government departments, providing them with efficient and accurate industrial project newsletters; helping project parties match industrial funds, connect with key contacts, and quickly integrate into the new industrial ecosystem.

This article is from the WeChat public account "36Kr Future Industries". Author: Zhang Bingbing, A Zhi. Republished by 36Kr with permission.