Stellarium Light Years Completes Pre-A Round of Financing to Build the "Last Centimeter" for Embodied Intelligence to Reach the Physical World | Exclusive Report by 36Kr

Author | Fu Chong

Editor | Su Jianxun

Recently, Shenzhen Starlight Year Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Starlight Year"), a global pioneer in embodied intelligence, completed its Pre - A round of financing. This round of financing was led by Saina Capital and Puhua Capital, followed by Kexi Venture Capital, and Shendu Capital served as the financial advisor.

The funds will be mainly used for tackling key problems in the underlying technology of dexterous manipulation, researching and developing the dexterous hand operating system (cerebellar model), and expanding the core team.

As the "last centimeter" between robots and the physical world, the dexterous hand is considered a key execution unit for achieving fine manipulation and intelligent interaction. Its maturity directly determines the adaptability and operating ability of intelligent agents in the real - world environment.

Starlight Year's research and development of dexterous hands is based on the technical route of "making efforts at both ends and self - developing the whole stack":

In terms of hardware, the company continuously conducts research and development on core components such as dexterous hand joint modules, rope - driven systems, and tactile sensors;

In terms of the "cerebellum" of the dexterous hand (dexterous hand operating system), the company enables robots to have higher autonomous operation and adaptation capabilities through reinforcement learning and imitation learning algorithms.

Within less than 5 months since its establishment, Starlight Year has completed the research, development, and mass production of a motor - direct - drive open - source five - finger dexterous hand and a micro - joint module; within less than 1 year, Starlight Year has launched and completed multiple rounds of iterations of the all - rope - driven dexterous hand product.

Its electric - drive product line features a high degree of modularity, adopting the "Lego - style" assembly concept; the open - source five - finger dexterous hand can achieve the assembly and replacement of the whole machine in 15 minutes, greatly improving the efficiency of innovation and development. At the same time, the self - developed micro - joint module has become the smallest joint actuator in the industry with its extremely compact design, and it leads the industry in both mass production and industrial application.

The core creative team of Starlight Year consists of core members with both scientific research innovation and engineering implementation capabilities, having the full - link ability from self - developing underlying hardware to developing algorithm systems.

The team members are from top domestic and overseas universities such as Tsinghua University, Harbin Institute of Technology, the University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and have accumulated experience in mechanical structure, control algorithms, and reinforcement learning.

Wei Dehao, the founder and CEO, said: "We are grateful for the trust and support of Saina Capital, Puhua Capital, and Kexi Venture Capital. This round of financing is not only a supplement of funds but also an affirmation of our strategic direction and R & D rhythm. Starlight Year will continue to promote the dexterous hand from 'function realization' to 'intelligent generalization' and provide core infrastructure for the last centimeter of embodied intelligence."