36Kr Exclusive | Jingang Technology Secures Tens of Millions of Yuan in Financing, Targeting the Robotic Magnetic Encoder Market

36Kr learned that Jingang Technology recently completed its Pre-A and Pre-A+ rounds of financing. The investor in the Pre-A round was Zhongke Chuangxing, and the investors in the Pre-A+ round were Shunrong Capital and Jiangyin Talent. The total amount of these two rounds of financing reached tens of millions of yuan, which will be used for technology R & D and market promotion.

Jingang Technology was founded in 2017 and focuses on the R & D of magnetic encoders for robots. At the beginning of his entrepreneurship, Liang Zheng, the founder of the company, targeted the robot terminal field. However, it didn't take long for him to realize that there were few encoders on the market that could meet the team's needs. Even if there were, they could only meet certain aspects of the needs, and the cost was quite high. Therefore, Liang Zheng realized that the encoder for robots was a broader blue ocean, so he turned to bet on this track.

Nearly eight years have passed. Now, Jingang Technology has occupied about 80% of domestic robot customers and about 30% of foreign robot customers in the field of magnetic encoders.

Liang Zheng told 36Kr that the encoder is to the robot what the nerve is to humans. Like human nerves, the encoder hidden in the robot's joints is used to sense the "muscles" of the robot, that is, the motors.

Currently, the trend of the robot industry is to move out of the factory and into human life. This requires robots to get rid of their previous "clumsy" image. They not only need to be more compact in size but also be able to interact with humans more smoothly. The key to achieving this is to improve the accuracy of the encoder and reduce its size.

Liang Zheng explained that the encoder is located at each joint of the robot. It's easy to understand that the smaller the encoder size, the more compact the robot's body will be.

In addition, after the robot enters the family, whether its actions conform to human instructions, whether it touches human skin during the contact process, and what reaction it should make if it touches a person, etc., all depend on the robot's perception ability.

Currently, many humanoid robots on the market still stomp their feet when walking and make noises like a floor vibrator. This is because their self - perception ability is weak. When a person stomps their feet while walking, their feet, legs, and brain can detect the vibration, and then they will adjust their walking style. However, many clumsy robots cannot detect these vibrations, so they have no way to adjust.

So how to make the robot's behavior more human - like? This depends on the encoder inside the robot, which is responsible for measuring angles. It is the only device to improve the robot's self - perception ability. The higher the accuracy of the encoder, the stronger the robot's perception ability. The magnetic encoder developed by Jingang Technology is currently the world's most accurate and miniaturized product.

Liang Zheng said that many domestic encoder manufacturers use traditional algorithm solutions. The drawback of this solution is that the higher the product accuracy, the larger the size will be. However, Jingang Technology uses a pattern - based algorithm. Therefore, while the product accuracy is infinitely approaching that of photoelectric encoders, it can also achieve the most extreme space occupation.

The pattern - based algorithm is a photoelectric - like measurement solution, which can find the greatest common divisor in the game between accuracy and size. Liang Zheng explained it to 36Kr with the example of high - end machine tools: Thirty or forty years ago, foreign countries imposed an embargo on high - end machine tools on China. What they really wanted to ban was not the motors and lead screws on high - end machine tools, but the high - precision measuring rulers on them. Because once we have this ruler, we can measure the precision of product processing. And that high - precision measuring ruler is the grating ruler.

High - end machine tools pursue infinite high accuracy, and light can break through the accuracy limit. However, another characteristic of light is that it is fragile and sensitive, and has high requirements for the venue. For example, the production venues of lithography machines are all high - cleanliness venues. However, in the robot industry, robots are designed to move out of the factory and into life. They cannot stay in the factory like high - end machine tools forever. Therefore, Jingang Technology uses a measurement principle similar to photoelectric on magnets - the pattern - based algorithm, thus meeting the needs of robot manufacturers for small and precise products.

In addition to robot manufacturers, Jingang Technology's customers also cover multiple industries such as automotive, military, and medical. In the future, as intelligent products penetrate into life more widely, the demand for small and precise encoders in various industries will gradually increase. Jingang Technology predicts that by 2030, the magnetic encoder will have a market space of more than 133.1 billion yuan.