The successor of a listed company raised three rounds of financing in half a year, with investments from MatrixPartners China and Zhiyuan Capital.
A company established less than a year ago has secured three rounds of financing in just half a year. Investors include Matrix Partners China, Yunhui Capital, Thick Snow Capital, Synstellation Capital, as well as industrial players and state-owned capital such as Agibot, listed company Foran, Xiamen C&D Emerging Investment, Wujiang Financial Holding, Zhihui Investment, and Ningbo Angel Capital.
This company is called Nexforce Robotics, a firm dedicated to providing precision motion components and actuation systems for robotics and high-end equipment, which has just completed its A+ round of financing. Its founder, Shi Bo, also serves as the general manager of Lixing Co., Ltd. As the successor of a ChiNext-listed company, he is also an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in global industrial and precision manufacturing.
Anyone who has read The Turbulent Decades knows that Jiangsu has been home to a thriving township enterprise sector since China's reform and opening-up. In 1988, Shi Bo's father, Shi Xianggui, left the supply and marketing cooperative to start his own business, founding the predecessor of Lixing Co., Ltd. The company was restructured into a joint-stock enterprise in 2000, establishing a modern corporate governance system, and went public on the ChiNext board in 2015. Its core business focuses on rolling elements for bearings, including steel balls and ceramic balls, which account for over 85% of its total revenue.
Lixing Co., Ltd. is also a typical "hidden champion" — a leading domestic manufacturer of bearing rolling elements that has entered the procurement systems of the world's top eight bearing manufacturers, with clients including SKF, Schaeffler, and Tesla. Its G3-grade high-precision steel balls achieve sub-micron level precision control, serving as a microcosm of China's continuously advancing precision manufacturing capabilities.
Shi Bo's career trajectory is marked by stark contrasts. Born into a manufacturing family, he did not directly join the family business in the early stage of his career. After completing his education overseas and rising to the position of a senior executive at a multinational industrial enterprise, he eventually returned to China's private manufacturing sector, and then founded a new hard-tech company after taking over the family business. This is a story of "second-generation entrepreneurship," as well as three pivotal choices made by a manufacturing leader across foreign enterprises, private domestic firms, and startups.
In 2023, Shi Bo returned to China from overseas to take up the post of general manager of Lixing Co., Ltd. In August 2025, he rented a building near Agibot's Shanghai headquarters, assembled an independent team to establish Nexforce Robotics, and focused on developing robot joint modules, precision screws, and motion actuation systems. His business partner is the former managing director of a top-tier investment firm, an ex-investor from Hillhouse Capital and Legend Capital, who has backed well-known companies such as Agibot and SinoHy Energy.
Having studied and worked in the United States for over a decade, Shi Bo rose to the position of Vice President of the Asia-Pacific region at SKF after returning to China, overseeing the entire industrial transmission business and operations. Three years ago, he took over the publicly listed manufacturing company with over a thousand employees, and then built a new hard-tech entrepreneurial team. This unique combination of experiences is rarely seen in China. Geng Kai, founding partner of Vofo Capital, remarked that he appreciates Shi Bo's path of "moving from a manufacturing background toward embodied intelligence."
The reasons why investors favor Shi Bo are clear: his overseas education and work experience, proven management track record at multinational industrial corporations, hands-on operational experience in China's private manufacturing sector, and deep understanding of precision manufacturing, supply chains, and scalable delivery. For the robot core component industry, which is still in the stage of engineering validation and commercial verification, these capabilities hold tangible practical value.
However, investors also have their concerns: since Shi Bo still serves as the general manager of Lixing Co., Ltd., how can he balance his responsibilities at both companies? And how can Nexforce Robotics and the listed company maintain clear, standardized governance and operational boundaries?
Some investment institutions once discussed with him whether he should commit to Nexforce Robotics full-time, but Shi Bo declined. "The listed company supports over a thousand employees. It is not only my foundation, but also a strong support that will allow Nexforce to go further in the future," he said.
He emphasized that Lixing Co., Ltd. and Nexforce Robotics have independent governance and operational teams. As the general manager of Lixing, he will continue to fully fulfill his responsibilities to the listed company's shareholders, employees, and clients, while at Nexforce he will mainly participate in strategic direction-setting, core team building, and key business decision-making. All collaborations between the two companies are based on the principles of independence, fairness, and market orientation.
From Ceramic Balls to Joint Modules
Nexforce Robotics' product development follows two distinct lines.
One line extends upward: Lixing Co., Ltd. has long specialized in precision rolling elements such as silicon nitride ceramic balls, achieving G3 and G5 grade precision to supply products for high-end bearings and special applications. The other line expands downstream: integrating ceramic balls into miniature ball screws, further incorporating motors, reducers, encoders, and sensing elements to develop joint modules and motion actuation systems for robotics and high-end equipment clients.
Shi Bo summarizes this path as the integrated development of "materials — transmission — modules." Putting it in more explicit terms, very few companies in China can independently control core material production, even fewer can manufacture screws in-house, and there are barely any that can fully connect the entire value chain from materials to screws to modules while already securing key clients.
Its client list is made up of top-tier enterprises. Shi Bo revealed that as of now, Nexforce has accumulated hundreds of millions of yuan in project and order reserves this year, covering formal orders, sample validation, and joint development projects. The final revenue will depend on subsequent delivery, acceptance checks, and project progress.
In the robotics sector, Nexforce is collaborating with several leading component assembly enterprises to validate its miniature screw solutions, and is working with well-known domestic humanoid robot manufacturers on joint module development. Beyond robotics, the company is also advancing validation for its transmission components, screws, and module products in scenarios such as commercial aerospace, medical research, and special equipment.
With a solid team in place, clear strategic direction, and the ability to carry out small-scale industrialization, backed by Shi Bo's 20+ years of expertise, Lixing Co., Ltd.'s resources, and the support of its renowned financial partner, Nexforce's financing process has been exceptionally smooth.
In December 2025, Matrix Partners China and Vofo Capital participated in the Pre-A round. In March 2026, Thick Snow Capital, Yunhui Capital, Agibot, Xiamen C&D Emerging Investment, and Synstellation Capital joined the A round. Then in July, the company just completed its A+ round, with Foran, Wujiang Financial Holding, Zhihui Investment, and Ningbo Angel Capital coming on board. Three rounds of financing in half a year have brought together a full spectrum of investors, from market-oriented VCs to industrial players and state-owned capital.
The timeline of Nexforce's three financing rounds is clearly structured.
After the first round, Nexforce leased independent office and R&D facilities in Beicai, Shanghai. The property originally belonged to Lixing Co., Ltd., and Nexforce secured it at market-rate rent to operate with a lean, asset-light model, moving in in April. The core goal of this round was to build the team and establish foundational R&D capabilities.
The A round focused on industrial synergy. Agibot joined the list of shareholders in this round, and beyond capital-level cooperation, the two sides are carrying out collaborative projects centered on product development and application validation. Thick Snow Capital, Yunhui Capital, Xiamen C&D Emerging Investment, and Synstellation Capital also participated in this round.
This phase drove the launch of the first batch of samples and joint development projects. Nexforce is working with leading robot component enterprises to validate miniature ball screw solutions, with precision rolling elements such as ceramic balls supplied by qualified vendors including Lixing Co., Ltd. through market-based arrangements. The company is also partnering with robot manufacturers and commercial aerospace clients on joint development of products such as joint modules and transmission components.
By the A+ round, the first batch of products had been finalized, and Shi Bo began large-scale recruitment of R&D talent, shifting the company's focus to industrialization. Pilot workshops and testing facilities are under construction in Rugao, Jiangsu, and Fenghua, Zhejiang, while the R&D center in Beicai, Shanghai, has invested in nearly 30 lifespan testing machines.
According to Shi Bo, Nexforce is advancing product validation and project implementation targeting robot bodies and core components, commercial aerospace, medical care, and logistics automation, and will gradually expand into more application scenarios such as medical devices, laboratory automation, biopharmaceuticals, and logistics sorting, accelerating the integration of high-precision motion and actuation technologies into real industrial environments.
The "Atypical" Return of a Manufacturing Successor
Shi Bo went to the United States to study and work at an early stage. He obtained his Master of Business Administration degree in 2001, and subsequently worked for American and Swedish companies. In 2012, he joined SKF, the world's top-ranked bearing manufacturer, and stayed there for 11 years. He managed Asia-Pacific operations, overseeing both the closure and establishment of factories. In 2019, he led the integration of bearing production capacity across five global factories of a leading North American new energy vehicle enterprise into China, securing 300 mu of land in Xinchang, Shaoxing, to build the entire industrial chain from scratch.
He summarizes this experience as follows: Foreign enterprises operate like a systematic "tank army" — once the strategy is determined, the organization, processes, and resources will coordinate to push forward, and the primary responsibility of managers is to ensure the correctness of the direction and operational mechanisms.
In August 2023, his father Shi Xianggui stepped down from the position of general manager of Lixing Co., Ltd., and Shi Bo took over. This succession was not a foregone conclusion, nor was it the cliché story of a father forcing his son to take over a wealthy family business.
Shi Bo's mother was never involved in the company's affairs, and she long opposed his return for a very traditional reason: she feared that both father and son, being strong-willed individuals, would have conflicting views on business operations, which would damage their otherwise warm and harmonious father-son relationship.
Shi Xianggui himself never explicitly asked his son to come back.
After leaving the supply and marketing cooperative to start his business in 1988, Shi Xianggui lived frugally, working his way up from a factory worker to workshop director, then to factory leadership, and eventually to chairman of the listed company. Over more than 30 years, he grew Lixing Co., Ltd. into the top domestic manufacturer of bearing steel balls, successfully entering the procurement systems of the world's top eight bearing manufacturers. Shi Xianggui also clearly understood that the operational environment and management logic of private manufacturing enterprises differ significantly from those of multinational corporations, and that his son would face considerable challenges upon his return.
Shi Bo himself never planned to come back. He owned a property in New York overlooking the Hudson River, was thriving in his foreign corporate career, and had received multiple attractive job offers from competitors.
However, Shi Xianggui had been waiting patiently for his son, twice.
The first time was in 2014, when the company approached him, hoping he would represent Lixing to build a factory in the United States. At that time, SKF was preparing to assign him to a position in Gothenburg, Sweden, and he chose to stay with SKF. The second time was in 2018, when Lixing was exploring overseas cooperation and merger opportunities, hoping to leverage his multinational experience, but he still did not return.
The turning point came in the summer of 2022. By the West Lake in Hangzhou, in the sweltering heat of August, Shi Xianggui stood by the lake with Shi Bo and suddenly said, "This company is like my own child. It would be great if you could come back."
Shi Bo recalled that at that moment, looking at his father's hunched figure, which appeared both strong and lonely, he was reminded of the essay The Sight of Father's Back by Zhu Ziqing. "At that moment, we finally reached a mutual understanding."
After returning to Lixing, he discovered that private manufacturing enterprises operate in a fundamentally different manner from multinational corporations. If foreign enterprises are comparable to systematic "tank armies" that advance through established processes, private domestic enterprises prioritize rapid response, cost awareness, market resilience, and the founder's judgment. For Shi Bo, this was not a simple matter of good or bad — it required him to learn an entirely new set of operational languages from scratch.
It is impossible for the next generation to follow the exact path laid out by the previous one. The father and son had their differences in strategic direction: Shi Bo wanted to consolidate the core business while exploring new growth curves oriented toward future technologies and markets. "Older generations often talk about how past achievements have shaped today's success, but we must also prepare for the future," he explained.
In Shi Bo's view, the advantages of traditional precision manufacturing need to be translated into new product forms and organizational models to enter faster-growing application sectors such as robotics and commercial aerospace.
At the end of 2024, his current financial partner reached out to Shi Bo. The financial partner's strengths lie in capital, talent, and industrial resource integration, while Shi Bo's expertise covers industrial technology, manufacturing management, and supply chain capabilities. The two began to discuss the establishment of a startup with independent governance, an independent team, and independent financing capabilities.
Returning to the investors' earlier concerns about Shi Bo's energy allocation and his relationship with the listed company: Shi Bo emphasized that the listed company and Nexforce operate completely independently. The listed company is both his foundation and his responsibility, supporting over a thousand employees, and its operations are already running smoothly.
"I will fulfill my respective duties in accordance with the governance requirements of both companies, and ensure stable daily operations through authorization mechanisms and professional teams. The two parties may cooperate in areas such as materials, precision manufacturing, and supply chains, but all such collaborations will follow the principles of market orientation, fairness, and standardization."
Even "Selling Shovels" Is Not Easy
Shi Bo's judgment on embodied intelligence is generally calm and pragmatic, which aligns perfectly with his background and personality. Having spent over two decades immersed in the manufacturing industry, he has an instinctive sense of caution toward the concept of mass production.
He did a simple calculation: for example, Lixing's wheel hub production lines have been depreciated over 20 years and no longer carry residual value, and veteran operators in their fifties can adjust the machines with a single glance. "If we replaced all these existing facilities now, the return on investment would never add up," he said. However, in new production lines with higher precision requirements, where manual operations cannot guarantee consistent quality and product value is higher, automated sorting, automated assembly, and intelligent transformation are more likely to generate tangible economic value. The same logic applies to embodied intelligence: large-scale deployment is only economically viable when the technology, reliability, and cost truly match the practical scenarios.
Therefore, Shi Bo believes that in the implementation of embodied intelligence on production lines, high-end scenarios will progress faster, while mid-to-low end scenarios will advance more slowly.
"Manufacturing supply chains have long faced intense pressure to reduce costs, and different markets and clients assign different weights to factors such as pricing, technological iteration, validation cycles, and supply chain security. Enterprises should not only focus on whether the technology is advanced, but also assess whether clients are willing to pay for the added value it delivers."
The perspective of a leader who concurrently manages a traditional manufacturing enterprise and a robotics startup differs from this year's popular narrative around the embodied intelligence boom, which is often driven purely by capital or conceptual hype.
Some members of Nexforce's U.S. team previously worked at leading overseas technology and robotics enterprises. Regarding the timeline for embodied intelligence implementation, their judgment is not overly optimistic: demonstration projects, prototype showcases, and large-scale deployment are three distinct stages. Moving from "basic operational capability" to "long-term stable, cost-controlled operation" still requires extensive engineering validation efforts.
The primary challenge is that current humanoid robots are not as practical as robotic arms in factory environments, due to significant gaps in reliability and repeat precision. The humanoid robot narrative was initiated by Elon Musk, but the "brain" — the underlying algorithms and data infrastructure — has not kept pace.
He cited an example: an embodied intelligence company conducted application scenario tests in the factory of a listed company, using the casting workshop and final assembly workshop for full-machine testing. After visiting the site, Shi Bo found that "the workshops are no different from Lixing's — they are still very traditional." In reality, "many enterprises in the industry can complete prototypes or demonstration lines in a relatively short period of time, but this does not equate to large-scale commercial deployment."
When it comes to screws and joint modules specifically, Shi Bo's views remain pragmatic. There are not many domestic startups focused on screw manufacturing, most of which are state-owned enterprises. The four traditional leading screw manufacturers have seen their talent pools nearly "poached dry" by embodied intelligence companies, the highest-margin market is still dominated by foreign enterprises, and the entire industry is still waiting for the mass production of domestically manufactured planetary roller screws for robotics.
At the core, the issue boils down to cost and return on investment. Shi Bo explained that investing in a high-end planetary roller screw production line typically costs 150 million RMB, and if a large number of imported high-precision equipment is used, the investment will be even higher. For startups, it is not practical to build a full heavy-asset production line purely through financing. Therefore