Veteran in Embodied AI Secures Hundreds of Millions in New Funding, Mobile Multi-Arm Robots Achieve Mass Industrial Deployment | Exclusive from 36Kr

Author: Ou Xue

Editor: Yuan Silai

Yingke has learned that Sagesmart Robotics, an embodied intelligent robot company, has recently completed consecutive Series A++ and Series A+++ financing rounds, with a cumulative amount reaching hundreds of millions of yuan. We have summarized the information on the latest two financing rounds and several highlights of the company:

Financing Amount and Leading Investor

Financing Rounds: Series A++ and Series A+++

Financing Amount: Hundreds of millions of yuan

Investors: Haitong Kaiyuan and Guoyuan Direct Investment

Use of Funds: 40% for technological R & D, 30% for overseas market expansion, 15 - 20% for the construction of intelligent manufacturing production lines, and the rest for working capital replenishment

Basic Company Information

Establishment Time: 2018

Company Headquarters: Shanghai

Core Products: Single - arm, double - arm, and four - arm robots; AMR mobile robots;

Technological Highlights: The SAGE - OS robot operating system and the integrated controller SAGE - Brain independently developed by Sagesmart Robotics have achieved a low - latency real - time closed - loop from perception, decision - making, planning to control, fundamentally solving the bottlenecks of traditional industrial automation in terms of flexibility and intelligence.

In terms of autonomous operation, the company has built a three - layer technological system of "ontology intelligence - group intelligence - large - scale intelligence". Through the integration of multi - modal perception such as vision, mechanics, and voice, it can identify and locate complex workpieces. With the self - developed VLAS large model, underlying motion control algorithms, and multi - arm collaborative planning, it can complete assembly and inspection operations with millimeter - level (±0.05mm) accuracy in a dynamic industrial environment.

Application Scenarios: In the field of high - end discrete manufacturing, it can be used for the flexible production lines and intelligent upgrading of industries such as automotive parts (e.g., wiring harness inspection, precision assembly, electric drive manufacturing, heat exchanger processing), 3C electronics (e.g., SMT feeder loading and unloading, motherboard inspection), and biopharmaceuticals (sterile sorting, laboratory automation).

Currently, the company uses leading manufacturing enterprises in industries such as automotive and electronics as breakthrough points. Through the strategy of "capturing leading enterprises, setting benchmarks, and expanding channels", it achieves large - scale replication and simultaneously expands to broader industrial scenarios such as new energy and high - end food and medicine.

Sagesmart Robotics' four - arm robot (Image source: Company)

Market Size

The industrial robot market is in a critical stage of transformation from "fixed automation" to "mobile intelligence". According to third - party industry reports, the current global industrial robot market has reached a scale of tens of billions. However, traditional robots mainly serve continuous structured scenarios, which only account for about 30% of the production process. In the discrete manufacturing scenarios, which account for 70% of the manufacturing industry, the automation penetration rate is still low due to the high requirements for flexibility and intelligence, creating a huge space for stock replacement.

With the accelerating transformation of industries such as new energy vehicles and high - end electronics towards the flexible manufacturing model of "small batches and multiple varieties", the demand for intelligent robots capable of autonomous movement and multi - space operation continues to explode.

Company Performance

Sagesmart Robotics has achieved profitability for many years. In recent years, its revenue has maintained an annual growth rate of 50% - 120%, and the expected growth next year will reach 300%. The company's current annual shipment is about one thousand units, and it is actively expanding its production capacity with the goal of increasing it to 5,000 units per year. Currently, the company has successfully built projects for leading customers such as Li Auto, Johnson & Johnson, and Mitsubishi, driving the expansion of a wide range of mid - and small - sized customers and forming a replicable large - scale growth path.

Team Background

Zhang Jianzheng, the founder and CEO of the company, is a doctor in the field of robotics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, with 21 years of R & D experience. He once worked at FANUC, a global industrial robot giant, and led the development of the first domestic 3D vision hand - eye coordination system applied in the automotive industry. Most of the other core members of the team have also held key technical positions in automation and robot enterprises such as Rockwell Automation and ABB, with an average working experience of more than 15 years.

Founder's Thoughts

Yingke: Compared with traditional industrial robots, what are Sagesmart's differential advantages?

Zhang Jianzheng: Traditional robots operate in a fixed manner and are suitable for continuous production, such as automobile welding and painting. However, the new - force car - making industry now adopts mixed - line production, and the processes are iterated and changed every year. Moreover, discrete manufacturing accounts for 70% of the entire manufacturing industry, which requires flexible operations with multiple batches and small varieties, and traditional methods cannot handle it.

We believe that for robots to completely replace humans, they must solve the problems of mobile operation and multi - space operation. Instead of working in a fixed place, they should be able to do different things in multiple spaces in an intelligent factory like humans. This requires the ability to independently identify scenarios, plan paths, perceive changes in operations, and adjust operation effects in open and unstructured scenarios. Therefore, our opportunity lies in using embodied intelligent robots with mobile operation capabilities to replace fixed robots in discrete manufacturing or continuously changing production links. In essence, our products are not of the same type as theirs, and we solve problems that they cannot solve.

Yingke: The company has achieved profitability. How did you do it?

Zhang Jianzheng: Many investors have labeled us as "the only profitable industrial intelligent robot company". In fact, we have had net profits for many years, which also proves that our business model is viable. In terms of pricing, we calculate based on "replacing labor", allowing customers to recover the cost of the robot with 1.5 to 2 years of workers' wages. Technologically, we independently develop the operating system and controller. We make up for hardware deficiencies with algorithms and adopt a modular design like building Lego, which reduces costs.

Yingke: What specific development plans does the company have in terms of technology and market in the future?

Zhang Jianzheng: In terms of technology, we will focus on promoting three major directions: "ontology intelligence, group intelligence, and large - scale intelligence". We plan to release a new - generation embodied intelligent robot next year to further improve the multi - task collaboration ability of robots in complex operation scenarios.

In terms of the market, we will accelerate global layout. Currently, the proportion of overseas revenue has exceeded 20%, and the future goal is to increase it to about 50%. We are strengthening the construction of local teams in regions such as Southeast Asia, Mexico, Europe, and the Middle East, and establishing sales, technical support, and service centers.

Investors' Thoughts

Haitong Kaiyuan said: While promoting its global strategy, Sagesmart Robotics, with its excellent technological capabilities and rich scenario experience, has successfully entered the supplier systems of many global giant customers with its embodied intelligent robots, verifying the reliability and practicality of its technological solutions in real industrial scenarios. We are optimistic about its technological leading advantages and engineering implementation capabilities in the vast blue ocean of intelligent manufacturing. With the accelerating transformation of the global manufacturing industry towards flexibility, Sagesmart's embodied intelligent robots will become one of the core productive forces in intelligent manufacturing, bringing a real efficiency revolution to the real economy.