Li Zexiang, the Godfather of DJI, and His Robot Legion
Many people may not know that behind the well - known names such as DJI, Yunjing, HAI Robotics, Techman Robotics, EcoFlow, and ePropulsion, there is a common big shot - Li Zexiang.
How can a university professor successfully incubate more than 160 hard - tech companies like on an assembly line? This is the most frequently asked question by the outside world about Li Zexiang, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the founder of the Automation Technology Center.
Over the past two decades, in his triple roles as an educator, an entrepreneur, and an investor, he has created a series of "hard - tech startup utopias" for young students.
Li Zexiang's incubation system has evolved over a long period: In 1992, it started from Lab 3126 at HKUST, incubating more than 50 enterprises such as Googol Technology and DJI; In 2004, he promoted the Reform Class at Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, from which more than 40 enterprises emerged; In 2014, he founded XbotPark in Dongguan, incubating more than 60 enterprises, and replicated this model in Ningbo, Changzhou, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Changsha, Beijing and other places; The Shenzhen Institute of Technology Innovation established in 2021 is the culmination of Li Zexiang's educational philosophy.
In terms of industrial funds, Li Zexiang has successively established Clear Water Bay Venture Capital I, XBOT PARK Fund, Hong Kong X, and Dongguan Clear Water Bay Venture Capital II. Characterized by early - stage investment and supply - chain empowerment, the total fund scale exceeds 2 billion yuan.
The robot startup army incubated by Li Zexiang spans many fields, including core robot components, household robots, companion robots, industrial robots, special robots, and exoskeleton robots. Among them, DJI's market value has exceeded 150 billion yuan, making it the undisputed king in the global drone field; Googol Technology was listed in August 2023; Woan Technology has submitted its prospectus and is preparing for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; Yunjing Intelligence has officially launched the Pre - IPO round of financing, starting the sprint before listing.
According to incomplete statistics from Robot Forward - looking, there are at least 65 robot - related enterprises founded, deeply involved in incubation, or invested in by Li Zexiang. If there are any omissions, please feel free to supplement.
01. Building a Startup Utopia
What kind of people can catch Li Zexiang's eye and enter his incubation system?
In terms of the criteria for selecting people, Li Zexiang initially valued a person's educational background and academic performance, but later gradually placed more emphasis on whether this person has passion for entrepreneurship and innovation, whether they have their own interests, and whether they can continuously summarize and explore from their interests to form a sense of mission.
The National College Student Robot Contest Robocon is the key way for Li Zexiang to select people. This competition designs tasks around specific themes every year, requiring participating teams to complete robot R & D and competitions under the conditions of limited resources and tight time.
As early as 2004, Li Zexiang introduced the ROBOCON robot competition into the classroom at HKUST and launched a Robot Competition and Design Course, allowing students to form teams to build robots independently. Among them was Wang Tao, the founder of DJI. In 2004 and 2005, Wang Tao led the HKUST team to win the Robocon Hong Kong regional championship and the international season third place respectively.
The Robocon competition and this course abandon the traditional credit - only theory and value students' innovative thinking more, testing students' multi - disciplinary crossover, hands - on ability, and supply - chain management ability. Since 2006, Li Zexiang has successively recruited students from the Robocon robot participating teams of various universities.
In the innovation - oriented base, Li Zexiang, in his triple roles as an educator, an entrepreneur, and an investor, endows the robot base with all the advantages of an incubator.
In the incubation base, startup teams can enjoy a support network covering the entire life cycle of entrepreneurship. Taking the Songshan Lake XbotPark Robot Base as an example, it has achieved the trinity of "base + fund + college", providing R & D venues, supply - chain support, and angel investment, forming a closed - loop for entrepreneurship.
In particular, the base has built a shared factory. This factory is not for orders but for the needs of entrepreneurs to bring their products to the market, helping them verify whether their concepts can be turned into products. Behind the shared factory is also connected to the supply - chain resources of well - known leading enterprises such as DJI, and these resources will be open to startup teams.
Li Zexiang has created a trusting and inclusive atmosphere in the base, where entrepreneurs can support each other. In a previous media interview, he once mentioned, "It's like walking at night. You'll be very scared if you walk alone. But if there are two or three or five people together, and you're given a flashlight and a stick to fend off dogs, you won't be scared. We're also attracting more people and constantly passing on the experience of walking at night to them."
In 2014, the domestic Internet startup boom swept across the country, but the hard - tech startup ecosystem was still immature, with problems such as insufficient financial support. So, Li Zexiang founded Clear Water Bay Venture Capital I to invest in and incubate student startup teams in Songshan Lake.
In the same year, Li Zexiang invited Gao Bingqiang, the former dean of the School of Engineering at HKUST, and Gan Jie, the deputy dean of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, to join and jointly established the startup incubation fund - XBOT PARK Fund (formerly known as "Clear Water Bay Venture Capital"), mainly investing in the seed round, angel round, and Series A of robot and intelligent hardware - related fields.
In 2016, Li Zexiang, together with Shen Nanpeng, the global executive partner of Sequoia Capital, and Chen Guanhua, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, jointly launched the technology startup platform "Hong Kong X" in Hong Kong. A supporting early - stage fund, the Hong Kong X Fund, with an initial scale of HK$300 million, was also established, focusing on hard - tech investment.
In 2022, Li Zexiang, together with institutions such as Tencent Industry Investment Fund, Sequoia Jingyao, and Dongguan Industrial Investment Parent Fund Co., Ltd., jointly initiated the establishment of Dongguan Clear Water Bay Venture Capital II.
Different from most investors who bet on products or startup directions that can yield quick returns, Li Zexiang's venture - capital funds always focus on the continuous iteration of project products by startup teams. This persistence of "not chasing quick results but emphasizing substance" exactly matches the characteristics of hard - tech startups, which have a long R & D cycle and require repeated polishing.
02. Starting from Core Components, One Listed Company Has Emerged
In the field of core robot components, the enterprises founded, incubated, or invested in by Li Zexiang cover controllers, motors, reducers, etc. Among them, Googol Technology has become his first listed company.
1. Googol Technology
In 1999, Li Zexiang, together with Gao Bingqiang and Wu Hong, his colleagues at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, jointly founded Googol Technology.
Motion control technology is the core of industrial automation equipment and is widely used in high - precision positioning and efficient operation of mid - to high - end industrial equipment. In 2000, Googol Technology developed China's first fully self - developed full - closed - loop motion controller (GT series), becoming the first company in the Asia - Pacific region with independent intellectual property rights, specializing in the research and development of motion control and intelligent manufacturing core technologies.
In August 2023, Googol Technology was listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming the first listed company under Li Zexiang's system. The official financial report shows that Googol Technology achieved an operating income of 418 million yuan, a year - on - year increase of 3.36%; among which, the income from core motion control components accounted for 70.40%; and the net profit reached 48.9088 million yuan.
Li Zexiang is currently the chairman of Googol Technology, indirectly holding 13.5% of the shares through Hong Kong Googol.
2. Nami Intelligence
Nami Intelligence was established in 2016. Its founder, Peng Xiaonan, once worked at Henan University of Science and Technology, researching the theory and experiment of toroidal worm drive for more than 30 years. After retirement, Peng Xiaonan accidentally met Li Zexiang and chose to come south to the Songshan Lake Robot Base to start a business when he was nearly 70 years old.
In 2019, Nami Intelligence received support from the XBOTPARK Fund. Currently, Dongguan Songshan Lake International Robot Research Institute Co., Ltd. holds 55.3% of the shares, and Googol Technology holds 7.9%.
Nami Intelligence focuses on the development of reducers. In addition, it has also designed and manufactured a precision CNC special toroidal worm and worm gear machine tool suitable for industrial production.
3. Yingteng Information
Yingteng Information was established in 2018. The core members of the team come from the Robotics and Perception Laboratory of the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The company received an investment of several million yuan from the XBOTPARK Fund at the beginning of its establishment, and its business focuses on the R & D of vision solutions and control technologies for mobile robots.
4. Benmo Technology
Benmo Technology was established in 2018. In 2021, it received seed - round investment from Li Zexiang personally, and then continuously received angel - round and Pre - A - round investments from the XBOTPARK Fund. The founder, Zhang Di, graduated from the Beijing Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree and then went to the School of ECE Robotics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for further studies, under the tutelage of Li Zexiang, focusing on the direction of robot power systems and control.
The reducer is one of the three major components in robot applications, which has the function of matching speed and transmitting torque. The technological innovation of Benmo Technology lies in removing the reducer, saving installation space, reducing robot noise, and improving battery life and product lifespan.
Based on this, Benmo Technology has formed two major business divisions: core components and robots, covering core robot components such as direct - drive motors without reducers and the R & D of robot bodies such as wheel - legged robots.
The wheel - legged robot series products launched by Benmo Technology
5. Wuqiong Innovation
Wuqiong Innovation was established in 2020 and has received investments from the Clear Water Bay II Fund and the XBOTPARK Fund. The founder, Pan Jie, graduated from the Robotics Research Institute of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with a master's degree.
The company focuses on the R & D of 3D space intelligent perception and robot technologies. The Metacam series of handheld scanners it launched, with a lightweight 680 - gram body integrating lidar and vision systems, support second - level color point - cloud collection and centimeter - level precision modeling, suitable for rapid 3D reconstruction indoors and outdoors; it also creates perception modules for embodied intelligent robots.
6. Moxian Technology
Moxian Technology started from a robot startup competition held by Li Zexiang in Songshan Lake. The company was officially established in 2021 and has received support from the XBOTPARK Fund. The founder, Kuang Zheng, is a former DJI engineer, and most of the core team also comes from DJI, having been deeply involved in the R & D of the drone pressure - sensing system.
Moxian Technology focuses on the R & D of tactile sensors, and its products have been applied in many fields such as consumer electronics, automobiles, robots, and medical care. Its electronic skin technology has also made significant progress in robot dexterous hands and robotic arms and is gradually expanding to the whole body of the robot body.
03. Developing C - end Products to Escape the Fate of Contract Manufacturing for Overseas Brands
In Li Zexiang's view, many Chinese enterprises seriously lack the ability of disruptive innovation when developing C - end products. If the innovative enterprises incubated by the XbotPark Robot Base continue to focus on the B - end, it will be difficult for them to escape the fate of contract manufacturing for overseas brands such as Apple.
Therefore, he advocates that young people entering the XbotPark Robot Innovation Base should focus on the innovation of C - end hardware products. A group of young students, without work experience and too many burdens, can have unique creativity and imagination.
The enterprises incubated by the base that specialize in the field of consumer - grade household robots include different types such as drones, sweeping robots, lawn mowing robots, finger robots, and companion robots. In addition, there are also many C - end intelligent hardware enterprises, covering intelligent kitchen appliances, intelligent musical instruments, intelligent skateboards, and intelligent pet products.
1. Yunjing Intelligence
In 2015, after graduating from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a postgraduate degree, Zhang Junbin, the founder of Yunjing Intelligence, sent his resume to Li Zexiang with the intention of starting a business. Then, Li Zexiang invited him to join the Songshan Lake XbotPark Robot Base, which was under construction, and it became the first startup project introduced into the base.
When he first arrived at the base, Li Zexiang took Zhang Junbin to the United States twice to visit and learn from many well - known Silicon Valley enterprises. During this period, they tried projects such as golf ball - picking machines and blind navigation devices, but none of them made smooth progress.