A team from Harbin Institute of Technology starts a business. Xuanchuang Robotics secures tens of millions in financing from Orient Fortune Capital and provides "special forces" for petrochemical giants | Exclusive report from Yingke

Author | Ou Xue

Editor | Peng Xiaoqiu

Yingke learned that Shenzhen Xuanchuang Robot Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xuanchuang Robot") recently completed a Pre-A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan. The investor is Orient Fortune Capital, and Yunyue Capital served as the financial advisor for this round. The financing funds will be mainly used for R & D investment and market expansion.

Xuanchuang Robot was founded in December 2022 and focuses on the development and application of special embodied intelligent robots. Its products are divided into two major categories: operation and maintenance robots and composite operation robots. The core business covers petrochemical, nuclear power and new energy, as well as emerging special industrial scenarios, such as agricultural and underwater special robots. The main customers include Wanhua Chemical, Pingdingshan Tianan Coal Mining, PetroChina, etc.

The core team of the company mainly comes from Harbin Institute of Technology, and the technological achievements originate from the R & D transformation of the Robotics Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology and Fujian (Quanzhou) Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. The founder and CEO, Fu Zhe, has 10 years of experience in industry and manufacturing. He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Harbin Institute of Technology and the University of Birmingham, and dual master's degrees from the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London.

Special robots are one of the three major robot industries, along with service robots and industrial robots. They mainly refer to robots that are applied in special industrial fields, have special functions and the ability to adapt to special environments. Special operation scenarios often involve dirty, dangerous, arduous and tiring work, as well as work that cannot be completed manually. Problems such as high risk, low reliability and high labor cost of manual work in such industries are becoming increasingly prominent.

Relevant data shows that the market for special robots in China is growing steadily, and the industry has great potential. The average annual compound growth rate exceeds 20%, and it is expected that the market scale will reach 30.6 billion yuan by 2025.

Fu Zhe told Yingke that at present, the core technological trends in the industry are mainly concentrated in three aspects: lightweight design of the whole machine, heterogeneous chassis structure, and core recognition and control algorithms. In the future, with the maturity of the algorithms of the "big brain" and "little brain" layers of embodied intelligence, the capabilities of special robots in external behavior perception and autonomous decision - making will also be gradually applied to actual scenarios.

Xuanchuang Robot's product design also keeps up with the technological trends of the industry. Fu Zhe introduced that in terms of special operation and maintenance robots, although the products generally adopt traditional configurations such as wheeled, tracked and rail - type, they have unique solutions such as lightweight design in the hardware structure design. At the same time, in terms of core algorithms, combined with the application of vertical models and the innovation of visual algorithms, a balance between mechanical stability and algorithm efficiency is achieved.

Explosion - proof wheeled inspection robot/Image source: the enterprise

Special composite operation robots focus more on the overall intelligent system in specific industrial scenarios, covering key technologies such as decision - making and perception at the "big brain" layer, motion control and hand - eye coordination at the "little brain" layer. Although most of these robots use explosion - proof wheeled or tracked standard chassis, they have strong independent R & D advantages in terms of algorithms such as behavior decision - making and mechanical arm coordination.

Explosion - proof composite operation robot/Image source: the enterprise

At present, Xuanchuang Robot's revenue mainly comes from special operation and maintenance robots. However, Fu Zhe believes that special composite operation robots also have great market potential in the future and are highly applicable in multiple scenarios such as oil and gas fields, basic chemicals, fine chemicals, and agricultural operations.

Cao Mengyu, co - founder and COO of Xuanchuang Robot, revealed to Yingke that the company's performance basically doubles every year, and it also achieved profitability last year. At present, the company mainly focuses on the petrochemical scenario, promotes equipment upgrading and the application of new technologies to achieve the best use effect. At the same time, the company continuously invests R & D resources in special operation and nuclear power scenarios to ensure the stable and efficient operation of the products at the owners' end.

Views of the investor:

Gao Jianguang, a partner of Orient Fortune Capital, said: "We are highly optimistic about the growth space of the special robot track under the strong support of national policies and urgent market demand. Relying on the profound technological accumulation of the Robotics Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology and Fujian (Quanzhou) Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Xuanchuang Robot has built a highly innovative full - stack platform in the field of special robots. It has built strong competitive advantages in cost control, R & D efficiency and product stability, and has been verified by leading customers in some industries. The company has been established for less than three years, and with its clear profit model and explosive performance growth, it has proven its great potential as an industry innovator. We look forward to joining hands with Xuanchuang to jointly promote the intelligent upgrade of China's special robot industry."

Li Lulu, a senior partner of Yunyue Capital, said: As the financial advisor of Xuanchuang Robot, based on in - depth industry insights, Yunyue Capital firmly believes in its three major core advantages: First, the strategic value of the track: Special robots are a necessary carrier to solve the pain points of "dirty, dangerous, arduous and tiring" operations in the hazardous chemical industry, and the industry will experience explosive growth in the next few years; Second, the top - notch technical team: Most of the company's core team members come from Harbin Institute of Technology, have been deeply involved in the field of special robots for many years, and possess multiple core technologies in the industry; Third, performance growth verification: In the first year of marketization, it obtained orders from multiple benchmark customers, and the explosion - proof operation and maintenance and operation robots have achieved large - scale implementation. The investment from Orient Fortune Capital is the best endorsement of Xuanchuang's technological commercialization ability.