The world's most flexible commercial dexterous hand company, whose products are purchased by Peking University and Tsinghua University, secures over 100 million yuan in seed financing | Exclusive from 36Kr

Author | Huang Nan

Editor | Yuan Silai

36Kr exclusively learned that Lingxin Qiaoshou (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lingxin Qiaoshou") has recently completed a seed - round financing of over 100 million yuan. Led by Sequoia China Seed Fund and Wankai New Materials, and followed by Lihe Capital, Lihe Finance, Huacang Capital, and Anyu, this round of financing is the largest - ever seed - round investment in the dexterous hand industry and will be used for underlying technology R & D and product optimization and iteration.

Founded in 2019, Lingxin Qiaoshou focuses on an embodied intelligence platform centered around "dexterous hands + cloud - based intelligent brains". It has independently developed the Linker Hand series of dexterous hands, as well as platform - based products such as the related motion - capture remote - operation system and the dexterous operation digital twin platform. Based on the synergy of both software and hardware fields, it helps enterprise customers, scientific research institutions, and individual developers achieve real - world scenario applications of dexterous hands. The monthly sales volume of its Linker Hand series products exceeds 1,000 units, with a market share of 80% in the global high - degree - of - freedom dexterous hand market, ranking first in the industry.

The founder and CEO, Zhou Yong, has more than a decade of combined experience in C - end Internet products and robotics. Many core members have served as technical leaders in well - known enterprises such as CloudMinds Robotics, Ninebot, and AUBO. The main team members are all from well - known universities such as Tsinghua University and Peking University. Currently, the R & D and production team has reached several hundred people, with rich technical R & D experience and product implementation experience.

As the end - effector of a robot, the dexterous hand is the core component for the robot to physically interact with the environment, which is related to the robot's task - execution ability and the realization level of embodied intelligence. The biomimetic dexterous hand with high - level perception ability and precise manipulation performance is the key to breaking through the ability bottleneck of the robotics industry, directly determining the upper limit of the robot's ability to be effectively deployed and execute tasks in real scenarios.

Therefore, the R & D of dexterous hands not only needs to simulate the mechanical structure of the human hand but also integrate complex perception and motion control systems to ensure that the robot can complete delicate operation tasks.

The industrial version of the Linker Hand series of dexterous hands independently developed by Lingxin Qiaoshou can reach 25 - 30 degrees of freedom, and the research version has reached as high as 42. Each finger can independently have up to 9 degrees of freedom and can rotate freely 360 degrees. The full - drive design combined with the force - position hybrid control algorithm can achieve a maximum load of 5 kg, even surpassing some of the movement abilities of human fingers.

This is also the commercial dexterous hand with the highest degree of freedom in the world currently. In contrast, the humanoid robotic hand Shadow Hand previously released by a British company has 24 degrees of freedom, and the dexterous hand of Tesla Optimus has 22 degrees of freedom.

Linker Hand series of dexterous hands (Source/Enterprise)

In terms of hardware structure, the Linker Hand series of products cover two design schemes: the linkage structure and the tendon - rope structure. Lingxin Qiaoshou is also the only company in China that has achieved the commercial mass - production of both dexterous hand structures.

The linkage transmission is widely used in the fields of industrial robots and prosthetics. It has high stiffness and is easy to achieve strong grasping. At the same time, each finger is an independent module that can be freely replaced or upgraded, enabling more precise control of movement, greatly improving the operation accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility, and reducing the maintenance cost. The tendon - rope structure simulates the tension control of human tendons, enabling multi - joint coordinated bending and more natural movement. It is also more conducive to the lightweight of the end and improving the structural compactness. Currently, products such as the Shadow Hand and Tesla Optimus also adopt the tendon - rope structure design.

To achieve better perception effects and control experiences, Lingxin Qiaoshou has equipped the Linker Hand series of dexterous hands with a multi - sensor system including cameras and electronic skins. It uses highly sensitive sensing technology to simulate the tactile perception of human fingertips and can accurately interact with the environment. For example, before approaching an object, it can predict and sense the existence and distance of the object; at the moment of contact, the dexterous hand can capture three - dimensional forces and keenly sense the texture and temperature differences on the object's surface.

Flexible control of the Linker Hand series of dexterous hands (Source/Enterprise)

During this period, the Lingxin Qiaoshou team built the world's largest dataset for dexterous operation, DexSkill - Net, through a large number of real - world simulations. Based on this, they trained the cloud - based intelligent brain to help the Linker Hand learn more accurate hand movements more quickly, improve the accuracy of task execution, and quickly adapt to various open - ended general scenarios, achieving a two - dimensional improvement in learning efficiency and versatility.

This cloud - based intelligent brain can support the same model to run on multiple different robots, quickly adapt to and operate new robotic arms, and effectively handle various newly emerging complex tasks, achieving a leap in model learning and application. As the number of new tasks learned increases, the ability of the cloud - based intelligent brain to learn and solve new tasks will also become stronger.

Linker Hand series of high - degree - of - freedom dexterous hands (Source/Enterprise)

Hard Kr learned that the Linker Hand series of dexterous hands also shows obvious advantages in terms of cost. According to official test data, its durability is 10 times that of the Shadow Hand. In scenarios with a large number of repetitive operations such as scientific research and education and industrial automation, the service life of the equipment is effectively extended. At the same time, in terms of price, the unit price of the Linker Hand is about 50,000 yuan, which is less than 1/20 of the Shadow Hand's price of about 1.5 million yuan.

Among them, the Linker Hand O7 reduces the price of the dexterous hand to 8,800 yuan. While lowering the threshold for the development and application of dexterous hands, it still maintains product advantages such as high durability, high degree of freedom, and multi - sensors. In terms of after - sales service, Lingxin Qiaoshou also offers users a "replace instead of repair" service. If a problem is found, the equipment can be replaced at any time, minimizing the R & D downtime caused by equipment failures for users.

Linkerbot dexterous hand (Source/Enterprise)

Currently, the Linker Hand series of dexterous hands have passed the test and certification of the Robot Testing Center of the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. They have the functions of force perception and wireless communication of the master - slave system, can adapt to the grasping of items of different sizes, shapes, hardness, and weights, and complete complex and delicate actions. They are used in embodied intelligence scientific research work by top domestic and foreign universities such as the University of Cambridge, Stanford University, Peking University, and Tsinghua University. In addition, they have been applied in scenarios such as medical rehabilitation, beauty and makeup, and industrial automation, achieving mass delivery of dexterous hand products.