After gaining experience at Huawei, Transsion, and Toolwiz, a post-95s entrepreneur creates the "Tesla of the AI maternal and infant industry" | Exclusive from 36Kr

Author | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Yuan Silai

Yingke learned that Coddie, an AI intelligent hardware brand for the maternal and infant industry (hereinafter referred to as "Coddie"), has completed an angel round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan. The investment was led by Zhongding Capital, and Xiangyang Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

The Coddie team was established in early 2026 and founded by He Canwei, a serial entrepreneur born in the 1990s. He Canwei graduated from the Technical University of Munich in Germany and has worked for global technology companies such as Huawei, Transsion Holdings, and Tuozhu Technology. The technical leader graduated from the computer science major of a top domestic university. He once worked for a leading semiconductor listed company, responsible for the implementation of imaging IC solutions for DJI and Insta360. Later, he joined a third - generation semiconductor enterprise recognized as a "Little Giant" by the state as the product manager, with a profound technical background in complex product R & D and the ability to integrate cutting - edge solutions.

Currently, global maternal and infant families are facing core pain points such as high parenting pressure, high costs, and complex information. Traditional maternal and infant products still remain at the basic function stage, with insufficient intelligence and fragmented ecosystems, failing to meet the needs of the new generation of families. In fact, maternal and infant intelligent devices have been developing globally for many years, and intelligent feeding, development monitoring, and pregnancy and childbirth technology have become the core categories with relatively fast growth rates globally.

"We believe that with the advent of AI, many industries need to be reinvented. In the past, the parenting track was about competing in marketing and channels, but in the future, it will definitely be about competing in products and intelligence. Before embodied intelligence is mature enough to enter families to take care of children, a more practical approach is to 'break up' the robots into intelligent hardware driven by AI to solve specific scenario problems one by one," He Canwei told Yingke.

Relevant data shows that North America (especially the United States) accounts for about 41.7% of the global market share. This is mainly due to the high per - capita disposable income, high acceptance of emerging technologies, and the fact that developed countries generally lack nannies/childcare workers, and dual - income families highly rely on technology for parenting.

In terms of market layout, Coddie will focus on the European and American markets in the early stage. There are two major opportunities: first, the payment mindset for high - end parenting products in Europe and the United States is mature; second, the labor cost is extremely high and professional parenting resources are scarce. The monthly salary of a professional childcare nanny in the United States is as high as $10,000 - $20,000, which provides a natural demand for the replacement of "machines for humans" by intelligent hardware.

In terms of product planning, in the short term, Coddie will focus on product R & D in scenarios that address users' core pain points. Through sensors to collect data, the AI model will further analyze and make decisions, and then drive the hardware to execute, realizing the automatic execution of tasks in scenarios where users have pain points, and ultimately achieving the goal of liberating parents and making parenting easier. In the long run, Coddie hopes to use the maternal and infant AI model + hardware products to achieve the "trusteeship" of "someone to watch, someone to comfort, and someone to teach".

In terms of AI technology solutions, Coddie adopts a technical route of combining small and large models with a local computing power center. The small model on the device side is responsible for real - time decision - making in parenting scenarios, and all data is stored locally. At the same time, it conducts personalized deep learning for each child. When encountering complex problems, the large model in the cloud will be called, taking into account both intelligent experience and privacy security.

"As long as our intelligent terminals can truly reduce the parenting burden for users in these high - frequency scenarios, it will be an irreplaceable 'essential tool'," He Canwei said.

Conversation with the Founder

Yingke: Why did you choose this time point to enter the AI hardware and maternal and infant track?

He Canwei: The core reason is that we saw the "beta" of the industry. The maternal and infant industry is an extremely essential and long - term in - demand track. No matter how advanced technology becomes, human investment in the continuation of life will always be the top priority. However, overall, the products are not perfect enough, and users are not well - served. With the decline in the cost of AI technology, motors, and sensors, the closed - loop of AI decision - making feedback and precise hardware execution can now be established.

Yingke: In the face of competition from large consumer goods manufacturers or extreme hardware geek teams, what is the core barrier of your team?

He Canwei: Traditional consumer goods companies lack the genes of hard technology and the motivation to restructure their organizations. The geek engineers of extreme hardware companies often do not understand the parenting track and have difficulty understanding the delicate and soft needs of women and mothers in terms of materials, appearance, and emotions. Large companies also have the burden of their high - end business brand image.

Our advantage lies in the "combination of hardware and software". On the "hardware" side, we have engineers and a supply system driven by extreme technology. On the "software" side, the team consists of senior female product managers in the industry, who can better express delicate emotions and hope to create good products that can empathize with parents.

Yingke: AI hardware has been struggling to maintain its popularity in the past two years, and many products have been criticized as "toys". How do you avoid this problem?

He Canwei: Many AI hardware products in the past failed because they only provided emotional values such as "companionship" and "novelty", which could not support the great explosion of new technologies. AI must return to its practical attributes and solve the core values of specific pain points. In middle - class families in Europe and the United States, scenarios such as soothing children to sleep at night and making milk powder in the early morning are extremely painful. As long as our intelligent terminals can truly reduce the parenting burden for users in these high - frequency scenarios, it will be an irreplaceable "essential tool".