The trillion-yuan high-altitude robot market is booming: Shihe Robotics has completed a Series B+++++ financing round, and Gecko Robotics has completed a Series D financing round.

Hidden beneath the hype of embodied intelligence and humanoid robots, a niche sector is experiencing the "calm" before its explosion.

According to a third - party research report, the application penetration rate of high - altitude robots in the domestic shipbuilding industry has reached 20%. Generally, this figure indicates an inflection point for large - scale industry application.

Agile capital has also started to bet on this niche track. Across the ocean, a company named Gecko Robotics completed a $125 million Series D financing in June this year, and its post - investment valuation soared to $1.25 billion. Around the same time, Shihe Robotics, the leading enterprise in this field in China, completed a total of hundreds of millions of yuan in financing from Series B+ to Series B+++++.

From the perspective of application scenarios, high - altitude robots are designed to meet the automation needs in high - altitude areas, covering core infrastructure industries such as shipbuilding, chemical engineering, energy, and construction, with a wide range of implementation scenarios. In terms of technical implementation, compared with ground - moving robots, the high - altitude factor poses more complex technical requirements for robots, which need to have reliable attachment and movement capabilities, high load - bearing capacity, and intelligent features.

After years of industry development and the gradual improvement of the entire robot industry chain, high - altitude robots have achieved technological breakthroughs in core areas such as magnetic adsorption materials and joint motors. The vast demand scenarios, combined with the already mature technical conditions, are bringing this "hidden" niche sector into the spotlight.

A huge market yet to be fully explored

In 2015 when Shihe Robotics was founded, there was no complete industrial understanding of the robot niche for high - altitude applications in China. The term "high - altitude robot" hadn't even emerged.

According to the classification of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), mobile robots are divided into four categories according to their operating environments: land, sea, air, and space, namely ground - moving robots, underwater robots, vertical - surface moving robots, and drones. Looking at the market situation at that time, major brands had occupied ground scenarios including logistics and distribution, commercial services, and household cleaning; underwater was mainly dominated by ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) and AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle), with manufacturers such as Blueye Robotics leading the way; and companies like DJI were rising in the drone field.

Only the "vertical" vertical - operation scenario was still in a blank state - no company had mass - produced vertical - surface moving robots on a large scale globally. Xu Huayang, the founder and CEO of the company, studied in the field of robotics during his doctoral studies at Tsinghua University. He realized that this blank in the industrial map might mean new opportunities. "The vertical scenario is also an important application direction for mobile robots. It should have its own mobile platform, product categories, and the potential to grow into a company worth tens of billions of dollars." Based on this market judgment, Shihe Robotics was established, thus starting the entrepreneurial journey in the field of "high - altitude robots".

If Shihe Robotics judged the feasibility of high - altitude robot entrepreneurship from the niche market space, then from the essence of "replacing humans with robots", high - altitude robots have the necessity and inevitability for development.

The essence of replacing humans with robots has never been to "show off technology", but to actually achieve cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and quality enhancement. The five major trends in the robotics industry released by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) at the beginning of this year mentioned that priority should be given to assigning "4D" jobs, such as dangerous, difficult, dirty, and dull jobs, to machines. High - altitude operations are undoubtedly typical "4D" jobs.

The national standard GB/T3608 - 2008 "Classification of High - Altitude Operations" stipulates that high - altitude operations refer to operations at a height of 2 meters or more above the falling height datum plane with the risk of falling. Accordingly, there are extensive high - altitude operation scenarios in industrial fields such as shipbuilding, chemical engineering, and energy, as well as in large - scale infrastructure fields such as exterior walls, bridges and tunnels, and airports.

The operation site of Shihe Robotics' BeeBot Pro exterior wall cleaning robot

In the past, these high - altitude operations mainly relied on manual labor, which was not only inefficient and costly but also accompanied by extremely high safety risks. Third - party statistics show that in the construction industry alone, high - altitude fall accidents have long accounted for more than 54% of construction safety accidents.

Currently, in the vertical scenario of the shipbuilding industry, due to the continuous increase in the application penetration rate of high - altitude robots, a structural change is underway.

On the one hand, environmental protection policies are driving the withdrawal of traditional high - pollution processes, and high - pressure water rust removal has become the mainstream. However, its danger and human - efficiency bottlenecks are prominent. Robots have strong attachment and high - load - carrying capabilities, with an operation efficiency 6 - 8 times that of manual labor. They can complete operations above the waterline in advance at the dock stage, and the single - dock period can be shortened by 20% - 30%, significantly improving the dock turnover rate of shipyards. On the other hand, the shipbuilding industry is facing the problems of an aging front - line workforce and difficulty in recruiting workers. The average age of workers has exceeded 52 years old, and young laborers hardly enter this industry. The application of high - altitude robots can just fill this structural gap.

Thus, in this trillion - level traditional industry, high - altitude robots are becoming the key fulcrum for technology to leverage industrial efficiency and safety.

The operation site of Shihe Robotics' HighMate V40 Ultra ship rust - removal robot

Currently, the penetration rate of high - altitude robots in the shipbuilding industry is still increasing. The comprehensive proportion has reached the 20% inflection point, and an explosion is imminent.

Emerging solutions

Although the application penetration rate of high - altitude robots is increasing year by year, compared with other types of robots, this is still an emerging market in development.

The long market cultivation period is due to both objective challenges such as complex scenarios and variable working conditions, and the influence of the evolving technology of high - altitude robots themselves and insufficient market awareness. From the perspective of industry users, when facing this robot niche that was once called the "wall - climbing robot" with a highly technical and professional title, most of them remained on the sidelines for a long time, carefully evaluating the operation stability, economic benefits, and possible safety responsibilities.

However, with the breakthrough of core technical pain points one by one, this stagnant situation is being broken.

Compared with ground - moving robots, high - altitude robots naturally have a higher technical threshold in their underlying physical structure. Their operation not only depends on the reverse force adsorbed on the vertical surface but also requires dynamic balance of the force balance and moment balance relationship among suction, load, and friction. Excessive suction will lead to movement retardation, while insufficient suction may cause slipping or falling risks. The magnetic adsorption ability of high - altitude robots on steel vertical surfaces was once limited by underlying materials.

But now, the neodymium - iron - boron magnetic materials used in magnetic modules have been upgraded several times, and the magnetic force has been continuously increasing under the same volume. The continuous improvement of the adsorption force and load - carrying capacity limit allows robots to maintain stable operation and safe work in high - recoil - force working conditions such as ultra - high - pressure water jet rust removal and adaptive force - control grinding.

Another core support point lies in joint motor technology. Benefiting from the rapid development of the mobile robot and legged robot fields in recent years, joint motors have been significantly optimized in terms of torque density, lightweight control, and response sensitivity. For the whole robot, this means a significant reduction in overall weight and an increase in the load - to - self - weight ratio. Taking Shihe Robotics as an example, some of the company's products have achieved a load - to - self - weight ratio of 3:1. According to a third - party research report, the current industry average is 2:1.

In addition, the progress of AI perception and navigation systems has enabled robots to have the capabilities of autonomous perception, obstacle avoidance, path planning, and positioning in complex vertical environments. By integrating visual recognition and laser ranging technology, some models can achieve centimeter - level positioning in complex working conditions and even have a certain degree of "vertical cruising" ability. This has gradually evolved the operations that previously relied on manual remote control to semi - autonomous and fully autonomous operations, further reducing the use threshold and operating costs.

More importantly, the improvement of core technologies and the overall maturity of the robot industry chain have made the "economic account" of more enterprises using high - altitude robots start to "make sense". The logic and conditions for the rapid penetration of high - altitude robots in the shipbuilding industry are expected to be replicated on a large scale in the chemical industry first.

There are a large number of chemical storage tanks and pressure vessels, with strong maintenance periodicity. The operating environment is closed, the space is narrow, and manual operations are extremely dangerous. The industry as a whole shows similar characteristics of "high - risk + high - frequency + high - payment ability" as the shipbuilding industry, and policy supervision, environmental protection requirements, and the aging trend are also significant. Shihe Robotics has shown such a trend in its business structure.

Shihe Robotics said that although the shipbuilding industry still contributes the largest absolute value of revenue according to application scenarios, its proportion is decreasing year by year. Xu Huayang said, "Because our business in other new industries such as chemical engineering and energy is increasing year by year."

He believes that in the longer term, the potential for high - altitude robot substitution in the energy industry will also be gradually released. In energy scenarios such as thermal power and wind power, high - altitude robots are gradually involved in key maintenance processes by replacing manual scaffolding and improving operation efficiency. Especially in high - risk environments such as offshore wind power, the ability of high - altitude robots to fit curved structures and the accuracy of path control are significantly better than those of humans. Considering the long service life and frequent maintenance of energy facilities, the application of high - altitude robots has clear long - term strategic value for the energy industry.

It can be seen that with technology as the core, policies as the catalyst, and a verifiable ROI, high - altitude robots are showing the potential for leap - forward development.

The next explosion point: High - altitude robots + detection + AI

In fact, automated products represented by robots are not a new concept, especially in the industrial system. The wave of replacing humans with robots has started several times. For example, robotic arms on assembly lines and handling robots in factories are representatives of different periods in these waves. The core of the new wave of robot popularity is no longer focused on simple "automation" but begins to emphasize the robots' ability of autonomous learning, understanding, and decision - making.

This is also the essential logic for Gecko Robotics to be favored at the capital level. Founded in 2016, Gecko focuses on providing high - altitude detection robot solutions for high - risk infrastructures such as petrochemical, power, and military industries. Global well - known venture capital institutions such as Founders Fund and Y Combinator have repeatedly bet on it, not for its robot hardware capabilities, but for the fact that its robots actually serve as an entry point for data collection and modeling.

Source: Gecko Robotics official website

Public information shows that Gecko has independently developed an asset intelligent management platform called Cantilever, where customers can view the centralized visualization results of all detection data collected by robots. In addition, the platform can use data for intelligent analysis and provide customers with predictive maintenance suggestions, such as predicting pipeline explosion risks and optimizing equipment operation parameters. This data platform ability has upgraded Gecko from a simple hardware provider to a "data + decision - support" solution provider, forming a real competitive barrier.

Source: Gecko Robotics official website

Currently, Gecko's business model has been proven and is steadily advancing - in February this year, the company's $100 million power plant detection project with NAES was further advanced to $250 million. It can be said that behind the multiple - fold growth of Gecko's valuation is actually the infinite imagination space brought by digital assets and AI capabilities.

In China, Shihe Robotics, the earliest entrant, has become a domestic star project benchmarking against Gecko. Shihe Robotics clearly stated that the company's next strategy is to upgrade from a "product company" to a "solution provider". It positions the next stage of the company as "three expansions": expanding product categories, expanding regions, and expanding applications.

Firstly, in terms of product category expansion, from the early focus on ship rust - removal scenarios, the applications of Shihe Robotics have expanded to multiple high - altitude operation scenarios such as chemical storage tanks, thermal power boilers, and wind turbine towers. Secondly, in terms of regional expansion, according to Shihe Robotics, the company has adopted a more flexible agent model to enter the vast overseas market.

Currently, in shipyards in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and other regions, the company's products have achieved commercial implementation conversion of "leaving the prototype in the factory after the demonstration". In a sense, this shows that its product strength has the foundation for international competition.

The operation site of Shihe Robotics' BeeBot V20 wind turbine tower detection robot

Finally, in terms of application expansion, this highlights the breakthrough of its ability boundary. Currently, Shihe Robotics' business is extending from maintenance to both construction and detection. Especially the extension to the detection end can be said to be the core of