Fumin Zhang, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has received the first round of financing funds only half a year after launching his startup.

A new dark horse has quietly emerged in the companion robot track.

On August 25, according to information obtained by ChinaVenture, In2Mate Shadow Technology (hereinafter referred to as "Shadow Technology") has closed its multi-million-dollar seed round financing. The investor roster features both prominent angel investors and scientists specialized in life sciences.

Positioned as an emotional companionship technology company, its core technical team originates from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. According to Fumin Zhang, Chair Professor of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Chief Scientist of Shadow Technology, the proceeds from this round of financing will be mainly used for the R&D of large companion models, mass production and supply chain construction, as well as the establishment of data compliance and security systems.

At a time when humanoid robots are being developed in droves, Shadow Technology has taken a differentiated path. It does not develop industrial-grade humanoid robots nor general-purpose service robots, but targets the niche demand of "presence companionship", focusing on full-size companion robots with constant temperature, memory capability and interactive functions.

In late August, "Jiaban", the world's first constant-temperature physical companion robot under Shadow Technology, officially launched the first batch of small-batch user deliveries. The product is positioned as a private emotional companion robot for high-net-worth urban people living alone.

Led by a professor from HKUST, the team aims to build robots that "understand" companionship

The story of Shadow Technology starts with four classmates from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

After graduating from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, they have years of deep experience in the robotics, supply chain, project management and consumer industries respectively. Some of them have over a decade of experience in silicone craftsmanship and full robot engineering, having served various hardware projects. After years of separate career paths, the group came together again.

What made them finally decide to start a business was two sets of data and one sentence. Public data shows that the number of people living alone in China exceeds 125 million, among whom there are about 118 million empty-nest elderly people. Behind the huge group of people living alone lies an increasingly prominent gap in emotional companionship.

When chatting with a single friend, the friend opened up to them: "I go home alone, spend festivals alone, have no one to talk to when I want to express my thoughts, and there is no one to hug when I feel down."

This made the team realize that the core of the companionship gap is not a lack of information, but the real lack of a "present" companion — one that remembers previous interactions, takes the initiative to respond, has a physical form, and is warm. After identifying the emotional companionship track, they founded Shadow Technology in Hong Kong in February 2026.

"We cannot outcompete tech giants in developing large general models, and the industrial robot sector is already a crowded red ocean. But the task of 'bringing a companion product truly into people's homes' exactly requires a team like ours that understands both material craftsmanship and full-machine engineering, and is willing to stay close to users to learn about their real needs."

In addition to the founding team with rich industrial experience, the core members of Shadow Technology also include engineers from the Huawei team and PhDs from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. They not only have backgrounds in large model interaction, speech engineering and consumer product development, but also are familiar with the complete engineering process from material formulation and skin craftsmanship to reliability testing.

The joining of Fumin Zhang completed another missing piece of the puzzle.

He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees from Tsinghua University and his doctorate from the University of Maryland. His research experience covers social robots, mobile sensor networks and cyber-physical systems. At Shadow Technology, Fumin Zhang is not responsible for a single algorithm module, but for the establishment of the technical system, emotional intelligence research and academic evaluation mechanisms.

In other words, the Shadow Technology team has both strong technical strength and engineering capabilities: on one side are industry scholars who have long studied human-robot interaction, and on the other side are a group of engineering practitioners who have real experience in developing silicone materials, robot joints, complete machines and mass production. This is the confidence that supports them to develop full-size companion robots.

"We are building a companion robot that can 'talk, remember and be warm'." According to Fumin Zhang, the core advantage of this emotional companion robot that most impresses users is its "understanding". "The hardest part of developing a companion robot is not making it 'able to talk', but making it 'able to get along with people'. Humanoid form is only the carrier, and companionship is the essence."

This means that from the silicone skin, joints and constant temperature system, to edge-side computing and long-term memory, and then to the current product pricing and business model, what Shadow Technology is really aiming to sell is no longer "a machine that looks like a human", but a set of embodied companionship experience.

Their idea soon attracted the attention of investors. In August 2026, Shadow Technology received several million US dollars from well-known individual investors and life science scientists, securing its first external financing since its establishment.

By demonstrating the product to investors, taking the official product delivery as verification evidence, and cooperating with academic teams to build an emotional understanding evaluation system, Shadow Technology has gradually transformed the highly subjective experience of "good or bad companionship" into a set of evaluable and comparable indicators.

Faced with the question of "what are your barriers to competition", they explained the interlocking logic of four layers of barriers to investors: engineering capabilities and supply chain resources ensure the product can be delivered stably; actual deliveries generate physical companionship data that cannot be found on the Internet; the data trains the dedicated large companion model; the model must run on the edge side to protect user privacy; edge-side operation relies on the right to define hardware — which circles back to engineering capabilities.

"Any single layer can be imitated, and the interlocking of the four layers forms a complete competitive barrier." As the investors' concerns were dispelled, they finally injected real capital into Shadow Technology, casting a vote of confidence for the team.

Focus on full-size companion robots

After officially launching the full-size companion robot project, Shadow Technology adopted a strategy of focusing on a single core product.

In order to polish the product to perfection, they voluntarily overturned and redid the definition of the first version of the product, shifting the positioning from "building a machine that looks like a human" to "building companionship intelligence". After this adjustment, the technical route of the product, supply chain selection, channel priority and other arrangements became clear accordingly.

Finally, Shadow Technology defined three core product principles. First, the product is not designed to replace real human beings, nor is it targeted at minors, emphasizing "boundary-aware companionship". Second, it adopts an edge-side architecture to process user data locally as much as possible. Third, movement, interaction, memory and tactile sensation are not separated from each other, but are integrated into one complete product.

Six months after its establishment, "Jiaban", the world's first constant-temperature physical companion robot under Shadow Technology, officially launched the first batch of small-batch user deliveries. Positioned as a private emotional companion robot for high-net-worth urban people living alone, this product features the capabilities of conversation, memory, constant temperature and appropriate boundaries, with a height of about 160 cm, a weight of 25 to 40 kg, and a price tag at the 30,000-yuan level.

According to Fumin Zhang, "capable of conversation" refers to the continuous dialogue capability instead of the question-and-answer style interaction; "capable of memory" refers to the cross-session long-term memory that can remember things the user mentioned last week; "warm" refers to both the physical tactile sensation of constant 36.7℃ body surface temperature and the appropriate response in the emotional dimension; "boundary-aware" is the core concept of the product — it will not replace real people, will not over-rely on users, and is not targeted at minors.

According to Shadow Technology's plan, it will follow the development path of "hardware as the anchor, services as the continuation".

In this process, Shadow Technology currently focuses on direct hardware sales. In the future, it will continue to upgrade products via OTA, and plan value-added service subscriptions such as cloud memory backup and scenario expansion packs. "Basic functions are sold for permanent use, and we will never adopt the forced binding mode of 'stop service if subscription is not paid'. Subscriptions are only for value-added services."

For a consumer robot, turning a demo into a deliverable product is a major threshold, but successful delivery does not mean the business model is already viable. Whether users will continue to use the robot after receiving it, and whether they will still interact with it every day several months later, will ultimately determine whether the so-called "companionship demand" is just a short-term novelty, or a long-term viable consumer demand.

Therefore, Shadow Technology prioritizes user retention over sales volume. In the next stage, it will focus on tracking indicators such as the first batch of users' retention rate and average daily interaction duration, instead of rushing to expand shipment scale. "Whether users are willing to talk to it every day is one of the most direct internal criteria for judging product strength."

In Fumin Zhang's view, the companionship robot track still requires 3 to 5 years of continuous iteration to reach the state of ideal mature products. During this period, the entire industry will develop step by step: first complete product verification in small-batch, high-tolerance typical scenarios, and then gradually penetrate into broader consumer groups.

This also means that the first round of financing is only the beginning of Shadow Technology's journey in the real competitive market. In the long run, the company believes that the companionship economy is a market spanning a ten-year timeline, and its goal is not to sell more robots, but to become the definer of the "companionship intelligence" product category.

This article is from the WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", Author: Lu Zhigao, Editor: Wang Qingwu, published with authorization from 36Kr.