Led by Meituan, a new dexterous hand unicorn is born
Dexterous hands are gaining massive traction.
Investment Circle has learned that today (July 17), Xynova, a full-stack solution provider for dexterous hands — the core component of embodied intelligence, officially announced the completion of a 500 million yuan Series A+ financing round. This round was led by Meituan, with participation from NIO Capital, China Merchants Capital, and a top-tier internet giant, while existing shareholder Xiaomi Strategic Investment continued to increase its stake. With this, Xynova has officially joined the unicorn ranks.
This marks the third investment Xynova has secured this year, and it once again received backing from leading industrial capital — in the Pre-A round in March this year and the Series A round in May, the lead investors were JD.com and Li Auto respectively.
Looking along the timeline, Xynova's financing pace is quite remarkable — three rounds in four months, totaling approximately 1.5 billion yuan, which vividly reflects the explosive popularity of dexterous hands amid the embodied intelligence boom.
Raising 1.5 Billion Yuan Consecutively, Assembling a Team of Industrial Capital
Founded less than two years ago, Xynova has left a deep impression on the venture capital community:
In December 2025, it secured an over 100 million yuan Angel round led by Puquan Capital (affiliated with CATL), with participation from Xiaomi Strategic Investment, Zhengxuan Investment (BYD-affiliated), and Oriental Wealth;
In March 2026, it closed a hundreds of millions of yuan Pre-A round led by JD.com, with participation from Caitong Capital, Yida Capital, and 37 Interactive Entertainment, while existing shareholders including Xiaomi Strategic Investment increased their stakes;
Shortly after, it completed another hundreds of millions of yuan Series A round, co-led by Li Auto Strategic Investment, CICC Capital, and CICC Investment, with participation from Zhewen Interactive, and existing shareholders like Xiaomi Strategic Investment once again boosted their holdings.
Up to the latest round — the 500 million yuan Series A+ financing led by Meituan, with participation from NIO Capital, China Merchants Capital, and a top internet giant, and continuous backing from existing shareholders such as Xiaomi Strategic Investment — the deal officially establishes Xynova as an embodied intelligence unicorn.
Xynova's World's First Hybrid-Driven Dexterous Hand Flex 2
Looking through Xynova's financing history, several key characteristics stand out:
First, the investor list is packed with internet giants and new energy leaders. CATL, Xiaomi, JD.com, Li Auto, Meituan, NIO, and BYD-affiliated Zhengxuan Investment have all appeared, most taking on the lead investor role. Such a capital combination is rarely seen even across the entire embodied intelligence track. To date, the total market value of Xynova's industrial shareholders has exceeded 5 trillion yuan.
Second, multiple existing shareholders have reinvested, demonstrating extremely strong "stickiness". Among them, Xiaomi, one of Xynova's earliest internet-affiliated strategic investors, has participated in every round from the Angel round to the Series A+, continuously increasing its stake across multiple rounds; in addition, many other existing shareholders have joined successive investments, setting a demonstrative example of "holding firmly".
In essence, whether for "high-end manufacturing and automotive ecosystems" or "internet and new economy scenarios", the underlying strategic intent behind these investors is clear — this is not merely a financial investment, but a collective positioning move by upstream and downstream industry players for the "industrial foundation of embodied intelligence".
Against the current industrial landscape, humanoid robots are shifting from tech demos to real factory deployment, and dexterous hands are the critical factor determining whether robots can stably perform tasks in the physical world to improve efficiency for enterprises and households. For these giants, investing in Xynova is essentially about finding the optimal solution for their core businesses:
On one hand, this represents a breakthrough for new energy automakers to overcome flexible manufacturing bottlenecks. In automotive assembly plants, stamping and welding have long achieved high automation, but for processes involving soft materials and non-standard operations such as seat installation, interior assembly, and wiring harness connection, traditional rigid robotic arms often struggle and rely heavily on manual labor. Automakers like Li Auto urgently need tools that can provide force control perception like human hands and handle objects with complex curved surfaces. Xynova's dexterous hands perfectly fill the "last and hardest puzzle piece" in automotive manufacturing automation.
On the other hand, this enables internet giants to redefine terminal delivery experiences. For industry players like JD.com, autonomous delivery vehicles have solved the "driving on roads" problem, but the last-meter interaction remains a pain point. Robots not only need to deliver goods to building entrances, but also accurately retrieve easily spillable soup noodles from thermal insulation boxes, gently place them in pickup ports, and even enter households in the future to complete organizing and tidying tasks.
Meituan's lead investment reflects its high recognition of Xynova's product value and large-scale commercial deployment capabilities, as well as its long-term optimism toward the core capability of dexterous manipulation. The key for robots to create value ultimately lies in whether they can truly enter real scenarios and complete complex tasks, and dexterous manipulation is the critical bridge connecting intelligent decision-making with the physical world. Meituan Strategic Investment stated: "We believe high-degree-of-freedom five-finger dexterous hands are a must-have for the ultimate form of humanoid robots. Xynova is a representative player in the high-degree-of-freedom dexterous hand track, not only launching highly competitive tendon-driven hand solutions, but also adhering to vertical integration and full-stack in-house R&D, combining technological innovation, engineering capabilities, and mass production potential. We look forward to seeing the company's products deployed in real scenarios, accelerating the move of robotic technology toward large-scale commercial application."
Now, this prestigious investor list has become a "collection map" of China's intelligent manufacturing industry chain — from new energy manufacturing and smart logistics to last-mile delivery, these leading industrial capitals almost cover the most core scenarios of embodied intelligence from production to circulation, thus opening a green channel for technology to move from laboratories to the real physical world.
They Specialize in Dexterous Hands, Breaking Through the "Last Centimeter" of Robotics
Back in 2024.
The wave of embodied intelligence had just risen, with countless entrepreneurs flocking to humanoid robot body manufacturing. But in Hangzhou, a post-1995 young man made a different decision: instead of building robot bodies, he chose the track known in the industry as the "last centimeter" — dexterous hands, whose complexity rivals that of the robot body itself.
This is Xia Yuxuan, Founder and CEO of Xynova, an entrepreneur in the embodied intelligence field with top global academic backgrounds and extensive investment experience. He holds a cross-disciplinary background in Physics and Computer Science (Machine Vision), previously worked at institutions including Morgan Stanley and CDH Investments, and has long focused on the hard technology and high-end manufacturing tracks.
Xia Yuxuan, Founder and CEO of Xynova
During his investment career, he focused on the embodied intelligence track, well aware that this is a grand narrative comparable to the previous industrial revolution. But robots' physical forms were far from ready, especially dexterous hands — the critical bottleneck for robots to evolve from "being able to move" to "being able to work" — which were extremely scarce in the market at that time.
Why are human hands so capable? The core reason is that large muscle groups are concentrated in the forearm, allowing the palm to achieve exceptional gripping strength with very light weight. Based on this reverse reasoning, Xia Yuxuan established the company's initial technical roadmap: moving the power sources (motors/electric cylinders) to the forearm, using tendons to drive the fingers. This idea directly led to the later hybrid drive solution.
The reality of entrepreneurship was more challenging than expected. At the end of 2024, China's supply chain ecosystem was far from mature, forcing Xynova to conduct extensive upstream technical research, tackling tough problems ranging from miniature lead screws, reducers, motor winding to electronic control and motion control algorithms — which later became its deepest technical moat, enabling true full-stack in-house R&D and manufacturing from underlying components to complete dexterous hands.
The company's most difficult period was before the launch of its first-generation product, as no product meant no market feedback. The turning point came in August 2025, when Xynova launched the world's first full-stack in-house developed high-degree-of-freedom tendon-driven dexterous hand Flex 1, weighing only 380 grams in the palm, with a payload capacity exceeding 30 kilograms, and key components with a lifespan of over 1.5 million cycles.
Since then, Xynova's team has rapidly expanded from less than 10 people to over 300, with more than 150 R&D personnel, bringing together research talents from top universities including Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as well as senior industry professionals from DJI, Apple, KUKA, CATL, and other leading enterprises.
The dexterous hand track has long been stuck in technical roadmap debates over "linkage", "pure tendon-driven", and "pure direct drive". But as the industry moves from laboratories to real physical scenarios, the market gradually realizes that merely obsessing over a single transmission method cannot solve practical pain points — the true moat lies in deep integration of underlying software and hardware. Today, Xynova has broken away from this mutually exclusive "roadmap debate".
Xia Yuxuan Invited to Share Dexterous Hand Research at ICRA
The team adheres to one principle: True dexterity comes from deep integration of hardware and algorithms. Therefore, Xynova does not rely on a single technical path bet, but builds a complete closed loop from physical components to intelligent decision-making through full-stack in-house R&D. Leveraging this underlying capability reuse and differentiated customization, Xynova accurately covers core business scenarios in both industrial and consumer markets.
Photo of Audience Interaction at Xynova's ICRA Booth
In May 2026, Xynova launched the world's first "tendon-driven + direct drive" hybrid-driven bionic dexterous hand Flex 2, a general dexterous manipulation solution for industrial and consumer markets. This is not only an evolution of mechanical structure, but also a qualitative leap in hardware-software collaboration:
In terms of hardware, it aims to break the impossible triangle of "performance, size, and lifespan". With 23 degrees of freedom and a palm weight under 400 grams, it achieves ultra-low end-effector inertia close to human hands. Through in-house research breakthroughs in materials science and manufacturing processes, the tendon lifespan has been increased to over 1.5 million cycles — marking the dexterous hand's transition from a lab demo to an industrial-grade durable component.
If hardware is the skeleton of the hand, then algorithms are its nerves and cerebellum. The data closed loop and motion control algorithm system enable Flex 2 to truly understand and execute commands. Its developed atomic skill library can break down complex operations into reusable underlying motion units, while achieving fingertip-level micron-scale motion control through high-precision force-position hybrid control algorithms.
For customers pursuing large-scale deployment, Flex 2 is undoubtedly the standardized component that can truly "work in factories".
Dexterous Hands Boom, Competition Shifts to Mass Production Deployment
If embodied intelligence is the crown of the world's future industries, dexterous hands are undoubtedly the most dazzling gem on it.
At this moment, the industry narrative has shifted from "how fast robots can run, how high they can jump" to "how many tasks robots can perform, how much value they can generate". Dexterous hands are the core components that enable robots to interact with the physical world — if large models are the brains of robots, then dexterous hands are the "last centimeter" that determines whether robots can truly be deployed to work.
Dexterous hands, joints, visual perception... whether robots can perform well ultimately depends on how mature these "physical capabilities" are. In the second half of the embodied intelligence era, robot OEMs no longer need to develop dexterous hands from scratch on their own, but require suppliers that can stably mass-produce highly reliable dexterous hands.
However, challenges still remain. A VC investor told us: The reliability and service life of current dexterous hand products are far from meeting the demands of production operations, and the industry is still in the early stage of rapid growth.
As the investor worried, many dexterous hands in real usage scenarios have a lifespan of only 1 to 3 months, and some start malfunctioning after just a few weeks.
In this regard, Xynova's products have now reached industrial-grade reliability standards, with key component tendon lifespan exceeding 1.5 million cycles, and the entire hand capable of over 1 million opening/closing cycles. They have also passed rigorous tests including high-low temperature, vibration, and drop tests to ensure stable operation in real scenarios.
As embodied intelligence enters the critical stage of transitioning from concept to commercialization, mass production capability is the key factor determining which companies can succeed. It is reported that in less than two years since its founding, Xynova has established mass production and delivery capabilities — with a 5,400 square meter self-owned factory in Hangzhou, which is expected to reach an annual production capacity of 10,000 units by the end of this year.
"There is no shortage of dexterous hand demos in the market — what's missing is the ability to stably replicate thousands and tens of thousands of reliable and usable hands," Xia Yuxuan emphasized. Leveraging its full-stack in-house R&D and manufacturing capabilities, Xynova independently controls everything from miniature lead screws and motors to control algorithms, not only building technical moats but also keeping costs at a highly competitive level, paving the way for large-scale commercialization.
Screenshot from Xynova Flex 2 Dexterous Hand Real Footage
When capital and industry reach a consensus on this "last centimeter", embodied intelligence will truly reach the inflection point of large-scale deployment, which may come faster than everyone expects — "Within three years, it will definitely be the time when embodied robots enter real scenarios on a large scale. If we are more optimistic, it could happen in 18 months."
Everyone firmly believes that the watershed moment is approaching.