Exclusive from Yingke | The former industrial robot team of SenseTime has raised tens of millions in financing for their startup, and they have independently developed an integrated control wheeled industrial robot.
Author: Ou Xue
Editor: Yuan Silai
Yingke exclusively learned that Shenzhen Tianyuanxing Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tianyuanxing"), a general industrial embodied intelligence platform, recently completed a tens of millions of yuan angel - round financing. The investors in this round include institutions such as Hongde Investment, Shengshi Hongyuan, and Haiyuan Capital. The raised funds will be mainly used for the R & D of end - to - end embodied intelligence control technology, the expansion of the R & D team, and the large - scale implementation in industrial scenarios.
Tianyuanxing was established in December 2024. It was formerly the Industrial Robot Division of SenseTime Group. It was established by the original core team of SenseTime's industrial robots after spin - off and is a member enterprise of SenseTime's X ecosystem. Since its establishment, it has had a profound precipitation of AI large - model technology, a mature accumulation of industrial robot technology, engineering implementation capabilities, and experience in implementing projects with leading customers in the industry.
Kuang Zhanghui, the founder of the company, is a doctor in artificial intelligence from the University of Hong Kong. He has previously worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Huawei Noah's Ark Lab. He joined SenseTime in 2015 and served as the head of the Industrial Robot Division of SenseTime before leaving. The intelligent perception solution for lithium batteries he led to develop has been implemented in batches for more than 100 sets in leading customers such as CATL, which verifies his technology implementation and customer service capabilities.
Currently, Tianyuanxing's core product is the wheeled chassis humanoid dual - arm robot "TX01", which mainly provides core operation capabilities such as flexible handling, loading and unloading, precise assembly, and active quality inspection for industrial scenarios, precisely matching the diverse and dexterous operation needs of flexible industrial production lines.
Different from most wheeled humanoid solutions on the market that use a folding design, TX01 uses a combination design of bamboo - joint electric cylinders and a wheeled chassis, which can keep the center of gravity always in the middle and has higher operational stability in industrial scenarios. The robot supports a long - term battery life of 4 - 8 hours and a maximum load capacity of 100 kg, making it suitable for high - intensity industrial operation scenarios. In terms of the control architecture, the industry generally uses independent control modes for the arms, dexterous hands, and chassis, resulting in limited coordination efficiency and high hardware costs. However, Tianyuanxing has achieved integrated control, significantly improving the overall coordination efficiency, reducing hardware costs, and further strengthening the core competitiveness of the product.
Yingke learned that TX01 completed the R & D iteration of the first - and second - generation prototypes in 2025, and the technology maturity has been continuously improved. In 2026, the TX series will be officially implemented in batches in industrial scenarios, marking a new stage of large - scale development.
In Kuang Zhanghui's view, industrial robots are experiencing a generational shift from "rule - based serial control" to "end - to - end control", and the pain points in the industry need to be solved urgently. In the early days, industrial robots reproduced trajectories through teaching, which was efficient but lacked flexibility and was difficult to adapt to complex and changeable flexible industrial scenarios. In recent years, industrial robots have completed operations through 2D or 3D vision guidance, with some improvement in flexibility, but the project implementation cost has remained high.
Based on a profound judgment of industry trends, in terms of technology route selection, Tianyuanxing did not follow the traditional industrial robot technology path of serial "sensor perception - calibration - regulation and control". Instead, it skipped the traditional technology bottlenecks and deeply explored its self - developed end - to - end closed - loop control architecture to create differentiated technological advantages at the root.
"The core value of industrial embodied intelligence is to solve the pain point of the high R & D and on - site implementation costs of traditional industrial robot solutions," Kuang Zhanghui explained. Traditional solutions often require customized R & D of a set of structural and algorithmic solutions according to the requirements. In addition, it takes engineers several weeks to conduct on - site debugging, and FAE needs to be stationed on - site continuously to deal with the algorithm adaptation problems of frequent model changes, which is time - consuming and labor - intensive. However, Tianyuanxing's end - to - end solution only needs to adapt to scene data without complex on - site debugging, greatly improving replicability and effectively helping customers reduce implementation costs.
In terms of customer expansion, Tianyuanxing has a natural advantage. The team has accumulated more than 10 leading industrial customers during their tenure at SenseTime, including the Beijing - Shanghai High - Speed Railway Maintenance Company of China Railway Electrification Bureau Group, CATL, Sunwoda, and Cixing Group, which have become a stable early - stage order pool for the company. Currently, some customers completed project signing in 2025, and in 2026, they will gradually enter the on - site verification and large - scale promotion stage of the robots, laying a solid foundation for the large - scale implementation of the products.
Specifically, in March 2026, Tianyuanxing will bring its core product TX01 to the on - site of a leading new - energy customer for testing, with the clear goal of achieving large - scale shipments that year, accelerating the industrial implementation process of the product, and promoting the large - scale application of industrial embodied intelligence technology in the new - energy field.
As an early - stage hard - tech company that has been established for just over a year, Tianyuanxing has shown self - financing and risk - resistance capabilities. This part of the revenue mainly comes from the delivery of embodied intelligence perception modules to early - stage customers, providing stable support for the company's R & D and operations.
The company has always focused on its long - term strategy and does not regard the perception module as its core business. Instead, it uses it as a "self - financing tool" for the enterprise and a data accumulation entry point for embodied intelligence technology. Kuang Zhanghui said, "Robots with integrated hardware and software and integrated control capabilities are the core direction of our company. The perception module is just a component of the embodied intelligence system."
Kuang Zhanghui admitted that the most urgent need for the company at present is to achieve mass production of embodied robots, which is also the key path to cost reduction. "Currently, the procurement cost of a single set of products is high, and there is limited room for negotiation in the supply chain. After mass production, the product cost is expected to be reduced by at least 50%, further enhancing the market competitiveness of the products and promoting industry popularization."
In addition to deeply exploring the domestic market, Tianyuanxing will also layout overseas market expansion in the future to explore development opportunities in the global industrial embodied intelligence field. Thanks to the implementation of previous cooperation projects with CATL in Thuringia, Germany, and with Sunwoda in Thailand, Tianyuanxing already has the foundation and core contacts for going global. Kuang Zhanghui believes that the competition in the overseas industrial embodied intelligence field is less intense than that in China, which will become one of the important directions for the company to achieve differentiated breakthrough and expand market influence.
Views of the investors:
Hongde Investment said: Tianyuanxing originated from SenseTime's Industrial Robot Division and has accumulated a large amount of industrial vision data, which lays a foundation for the strong generalization ability of the model in industrial scenarios. The team has full - process experience from product POC to batch delivery and has built a complete technology chain from data production, model training to hardware carriers. The product R & D system has formed a powerful iterative flywheel. Hongde Investment is optimistic about the potential of Tianyuanxing's embodied products to achieve rapid commercial implementation in industrial flexible automation scenarios, and will help the company's technology industrialization and business expansion, providing key support for the upgrading of the industrial intelligent manufacturing industry.
Li Shuai, the general manager of Shengshi Hongyuan, said: As a high - tech enterprise focusing on the R & D and implementation of a general industrial embodied intelligence platform, Tianyuanxing's "data - brain - body" trinity technology architecture precisely addresses the core needs of the intelligent upgrading of industrial scenarios. Relying on the experience accumulated in the in - depth integration of artificial intelligence, robot technology, and industrial scenarios, the company's three core product platforms, TengenData, TengenBrain, and TengenBuddy, have been successfully implemented in multiple scenarios such as lithium - battery quality inspection and rail - transit detection, and are continuously expanding to general industrial scenarios such as handling and packaging, showing significant value in helping downstream industries with safety upgrading, quality optimization, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement. We are optimistic about Tianyuanxing's technological leadership and scenario expansion ability in the industrial embodied intelligence field. As the wave of intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry accelerates, the company's integrated intelligent solution will become the key support for industrial enterprises to achieve flexible operations and improve production efficiency, providing important assistance for the high - quality development of the real economy.
Haiyuan Capital said: We are optimistic about the development of Tianyuanxing's industrial embodied intelligence platform. Relying on the core technology accumulation of SenseTime, it has self - developed the core algorithms of the "big and small brains" of embodied intelligence and created an embodied intelligence solution integrating hardware and software, precisely focusing on new - energy industrial scenarios such as lithium - battery and photovoltaic industries. It has completed POC verification for leading enterprises in the fields of flexible handling and intelligent assembly, effectively solving the pain points of insufficient flexibility and low reusability of traditional industrial automation. The company's core technology is independently controllable, its scenario implementation ability is outstanding, its commercialization rhythm is clear, and its growth potential and commercial value are prominent. Its future is worth looking forward to.