Led by SCGC, this micro-joint module enterprise completes tens of millions in financing | 36Kr Exclusive

Author: Ou Xue

Editor: Yuan Silai

Yingke learned that Fingertip Intelligence, a company specializing in micro high-performance motors, recently completed a Pre-A round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan. The lead investor was Shenzhen Capital Group, with Tianqi Capital and Zhuoyuan Asia following. The funds will be mainly used for the mass production ramp-up of the new generation of micro axial flux motors, the construction of the coreless motor production line, and the guarantee of supply chain delivery for global leading customers. Duowei Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round.

Fingertip Intelligence was founded in August 2024. The company's main products include micro axial flux joint modules and coreless motors, and the core application scenarios cover fields such as dexterous hands, consumer-grade robots, light mechanical arms, and medical equipment. Zhang Yang, the founder of the company, has 12 years of experience in the motor industry and has worked for companies such as Midea, Weifu Hi-Tech, and Tudatong.

φ16mm micro joint module (Source: Company)

Currently, the mainstream technical paths of dexterous hands for humanoid robots have obvious shortcomings in terms of accuracy, degrees of freedom, torque density, and cost. The industry has long faced the difficult problem of being unable to achieve "miniaturization, high performance, and low cost" simultaneously.

Fingertip Intelligence adopts a combination of self-developed micro axial flux motors, PCB windings, and cycloidal reducers. The minimum outer diameter of the company's products is 16 mm, and the maximum is 30 mm, taking a differentiated route of miniaturization. Taking the 16mm specification as an example, the maximum continuous torque of the motor is greater than 7.8 mNm, the maximum continuous torque of the electric drive assembly can reach 0.10 - 0.31 Nm, and the transmission efficiency is 80% - 88%.

In terms of the technical route, the company has three core features: First, it uses axial flux motors, which are different from the traditional radial flux structure; Second, all motors use PCB winding technology, avoiding the difficulty of winding in ultra-micro motors and greatly improving accuracy and consistency; Third, the reducer uses a cycloidal scheme, taking into account both cost and reliability.

Zhang Yang said, "We entered the market relatively late, so we must find a different way, focus on differentiation and miniaturization, and at the same time, the technical route should be forward-looking to ensure that we will not be eliminated in the future."

Fingertip Intelligence has basically completed the construction of its micro joint module product line. There are already 4 standard product sizes and multiple customized development projects under research. Its coreless motor product line will also be gradually completed within this year.

φ4mm and φ5mm ultra-micro coreless motors (Source: Company)

Currently, the company's team has more than 100 people. It has a research and development center and a factory of about 9,000 square meters in the Suzhou Industrial Park, with the production capacity of 100,000 micro joint modules per year. The annual production capacity will reach 200,000 units in the third quarter.

In terms of commercialization, the company has made substantial progress. Currently, customers related to dexterous hands account for about 60% - 70% of the company's revenue. The company has signed agreements with several leading customers and is promoting in-depth cooperation. Among them, strategic development cooperation has been finalized with two leading companies.

The following is an excerpt from the dialogue between Yingke and Zhang Yang:

Yingke: There are other companies in the market doing axial flux motors, PCB windings, or cycloidal reducers. What is the core difference of Fingertip Intelligence?

Zhang Yang: Since we started promoting this solution at the end of 2024, there have indeed been many companies in the market following up. However, they are all making relatively large products, and there is no mature industrialization yet. Even if some manufacturers are also doing axial flux motors, cycloidal reducers, and PCB winding solutions, they have not combined these technologies for miniaturization. Our core difference and greatest advantage is miniaturization, which is our biggest moat.

Yingke: How do you view the current reliability issue of dexterous hands?

Zhang Yang: Currently, the industry promotes the lifespan of hands in millions of times. However, if calculated, if it opens and closes once per second, 2 million times is only more than 200 hours, which does not even meet the reliability standard of household appliances. Moreover, this is under no-load conditions. If under load, the lifespan may be reduced to only one-tenth. We are currently actively promoting the improvement of reliability testing and verification, optimizing from multiple dimensions such as materials, structure, and process. Compared with other solutions in the industry, our advantage in this aspect is already quite obvious. For hands to be truly implemented in industrial and household scenarios, the improvement of reliability is an urgent issue to be solved.

Yingke: You don't make the whole machine yourself. What other imagination space is there in the future?

Zhang Yang: Our positioning is very clear. We are the "shovel sellers". Component companies can also become great companies. In essence, Fingertip Intelligence is positioned as a micro motor company. The downstream application scenarios are not only dexterous hands or robots. The micro motor itself is a very large market, covering multiple industries such as consumer electronics, medical, and industrial automation, with a very wide range of scenarios. We already have some other promising projects in progress.

We will not get involved in downstream business. It is enough to become a benchmark enterprise in the field of micro high-performance motors. The market and valuation space is already very large. It's not that we can't do it, but there is no need to. Moreover, many customers are worried that we will do downstream business, which is not a smart move.

Views of investors:

Shenzhen Capital Group, the lead investor in this round of financing, said: "Embodied intelligence is one of the most certain technological trends in the next decade. We found that Fingertip Intelligence is not only a pioneer in the 'no man's land' of technology but also a 'doer' in mass production. Its idea of introducing semiconductor technology into motor manufacturing is extremely subversive. The team is not only proficient in electromagnetic field technology but also well-versed in supply chain management. We firmly believe that Fingertip Intelligence will become the core power engine in the field of robot micro joint modules."

Tianqi Capital and Zhuoyuan Asia believe: Fingertip Intelligence accurately targets the core bottleneck of the industrial chain in micro actuators. Its original PCB axial flux technical route not only breaks the overseas technology monopoly but also has the scarce ability of large-scale mass production. On the eve of the explosion of embodied intelligence from the "laboratory" to the "production line", Fingertip Intelligence undoubtedly occupies an ecological niche of great strategic value.