Veteran in Embodied AI Secures Hundreds of Millions in New Funding, Mobile Multi-Arm Robots Deployed in Industrial Settings in Bulk | Exclusive from 36Kr

Author: Ou Xue

Editor: Yuan Silai

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

Financing Amount and Leading Investors

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

Financing Amount: Hundreds of millions of yuan

Investors: Haitong Kaiyuan and Guoyuan Equity

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

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 Sages Intelligence 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 operations, the company has built a three - layer technical system of "body intelligence - group intelligence - large - scale intelligence". By integrating 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 upgrades 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).

The company currently uses leading manufacturing enterprises in industries such as automotive and electronics as breakthrough points. Through the strategy of "capturing leading enterprises, establishing 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.

Sages Intelligence's four - arm robot (Source/Enterprise)

Market Size

The industrial robot market is at 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, but traditional robots mainly serve continuous structured scenarios, which account for only about 30% of the production process. The discrete manufacturing scenarios, which account for 70% of the manufacturing industry, have a low automation penetration rate due to the high requirements for flexibility and intelligence, presenting a huge replacement space for the existing market.

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

Company Performance

Sages Intelligence has achieved profitability for many years. In recent years, its revenue has maintained an annual growth rate of 50% - 120%, and it is expected to grow by 300% next year. The company's current annual shipment volume is about a thousand units, and it is actively expanding its production capacity with the goal of increasing it to 5,000 units per year. At present, 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 China's first 3D vision hand - eye coordination system applied to the automotive industry. Many other core members of the team have also held key technical positions in automation and robot companies such as Rockwell Automation and ABB, with an average working experience of more than 15 years.

Founder's Insights

Yingke: Compared with traditional industrial robots, what are the differential advantages of Sages Intelligence?

Zhang Jianzheng: Traditional robots perform fixed operations and are suitable for continuous production, such as automotive 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 for multiple batches and small varieties, and traditional methods cannot meet these needs.

We believe that for robots to completely replace humans, they must solve the problems of mobile operations and multi - space and multi - task operations. 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 operational changes, and adjust operational effects in an open and unstructured environment. Therefore, our opportunity lies in using embodied intelligent robots with mobile operation capabilities to replace fixed robots in discrete manufacturing or continuously changing production processes. In essence, our products are not the same type as theirs, and we are solving problems that they cannot solve.

Yingke: The company has achieved profitability. How did you manage to do that?

Zhang Jianzheng: We have been labeled by many investors 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 manual 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, compensate for hardware deficiencies with algorithms, and use modular design like building Lego, which reduces the cost.

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

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

In terms of the market, we will accelerate our global layout. Currently, overseas revenue accounts for more than 20%, and our 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' Insights

Haitong Kaiyuan said: While promoting its global strategy, Sages Intelligence, with its excellent technical capabilities and in - depth 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 technical solutions in real industrial scenarios. We are optimistic about its technological leading advantage and engineering implementation ability in the vast blue ocean of intelligent manufacturing. As the global manufacturing industry accelerates its transformation towards flexibility, Sages' embodied intelligent robots will become one of the core productive forces in intelligent manufacturing, bringing a real efficiency revolution to the real economy.

Guoyuan Equity said: We invested in Sages Intelligence mainly based on its leading implementation ability in the in - depth integration of "embodied intelligence" and industrial scenarios. Different from traditional industrial robots, Sages' product system is built around the "humanoid operation logic", truly realizing human - like operations in a dynamic environment through multi - arm collaboration, autonomous movement, and intelligent perception. This product form, which is highly adaptable to the characteristics of discrete manufacturing, has quickly established benchmarks among leading customers and formed a replicable and expandable large - scale path. The Sages team has both top - notch technical backgrounds and in - depth industrial experience. They not only continuously make breakthroughs in R & D but also show excellent execution ability in commercialization, standardization, and internationalization. We believe that Sages is at a crossroads of large - scale replacement of the existing market and exploration of new markets, and is expected to become a key promoter and beneficiary in the new round of transformation in intelligent manufacturing.