China VC Weekly: Big Week for Robots and China’s Instagram

In last week’s VC news, several prominent Chinese robotics companies raised considerable E-Finance rounds from investors; China’s Instagram rival Xiaohongshu took it’s valuation to a whopping $20 billion; bike-sharing giant Hello Inc. raised new funds from Ant Financial and Alibaba, and more.

Gaussian Robotics Raises $188 Million in Third Round of Financing This Year

Chinese robot-maker startup Gaussian Robotics announced that it has raised 1.2 billion yuan ($188 million) from a group of investors including Capital Today, SoftBank Vision Fund, Jinyi Capital, Meituan, BlueRun Ventures, Grand Flight, and others. Prudent Capital acted as the sole strategic financial adviser for this round.

With this latest round of financing, Gaussian Robotics has now completed three consecutive rounds of financing within the last year.

In addition to financial investment, Softbank’s Vision Fund has signed thousands of robot orders with Gaussian Robotics to further help the robotics company’s overseas business development.

Cheng Haotian, founder and CEO of Gaussian Robotics, spoke about the company’s developments: “Digital management is the only way to resolve the contradiction between manpower and management costs in the traditional service industry in the future. As the most important terminal in digital management, robots are accelerating intelligent cleaning against the backdrop of an aging population, rapid urbanization and current epidemic prevention measures.”

About Gaussian Robotics

Founded in October 2013, Gaussian Robotics was one of the earliest robot companies engaged in the R&D and application of autonomous mobile technologies in the world. After eight years of extensive R&D, the company has formed six major product lines and has taken the lead in realizing technologies such as simultaneous localization and mapping in highly complex scenarios, automatic ground identification and dynamic planning.

Bike-sharing Giant Hello Inc. Raises $280 Million

Chinese public transportation platform, Hello Inc., announced on Tuesday the completion of a new round of financing worth about $280 million. This round of financing was led by Ant Group and Alibaba and is the second round of financing obtained by Hello Inc. this year. So far, the company has closed financing deals totaling over $500 million this year.

Since its establishment five years ago, the Ant-associated Hello Inc. has received funding from many well-known investment institutions, including Ant Group, Alibaba, GGV Capital, Chengcheng Capital, Fosun Group, Primavera Capital Group and Greater Bay Area Development Fund.

In fact, the financing deals from the first half of this year saw Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) acquire shares of Hello Inc. for the first time. Prior to this round of financing, “Xiaoha Power Xxchange”, the electric bicycle power exchange brand owned by Hello Inc., received joint investment from Ant Group and CATL in 2019.

Yang Lei, CEO of Hello Inc., said that the shareholdings of Alibaba and CATL are of great significance to the company. Going forward, Hello Inc. will work closely with Alibaba while further utilizing CATL’s battery resources to help the company develop its business.

About Hello Inc.

Initially a bike-sharing service, Hello Inc. has gradually introduced car pooling, power exchanges, taxis, electric cars, and other services over the years. Hello Inc.’s electric bicycles have been stationed in over 400 cities in China, with more than 500 million registered users.

Feihu365 Technology Receives $15.6 Million from Shunwei Capital and Others

Feihu365 Technology announced that it had completed a new round of financing, in which it garnered over 100 million yuan ($15.6 million) in investment money led by Shunwei Capital and followed by previous shareholders.

After this round of financing, Feihu365 Technology is looking to continue to improve its products and services for its customers by investing in R&D of new business products while continuing to lead the trend of “video platform as a service” (VPaaS). The company will continue helping financial institutions transform to more of a digital model.

About Feihu365 Technology

Established in 2015, the company is committed to the application of interactive video together with AI and robotic process automation (RPA) technology in the financial industry. The company provides financial institutions with innovative means of operating digitally.

Xiaohongshu Rakes in $500 Million Bringing Total Valuation to $20 Billion

Xiaohongshu, a Chinese lifestyle sharing platform, recently completed a new round of financing worth $500 million, led by Singapore’s Temasek and Tencent, and followed by previous shareholders such as Alibaba, Tiantu Capital and Genesis Capital.

The company’s valuation now sits at about $20 billion, but the company said that this round of financing was mainly made up of investment from prior shareholders.

Xiaohongshu, which was founded eight years ago, has completed five rounds of financing to date, the latest of which took place in June 2018. At that time, the company secured a $300 million round D financing deal led by Alibaba. However, 36Kr’s sources said that Xiaohongshu also conducted a private round of financing in the first half of last year. At that time, its valuation stood at about $5 billion but by the end of last year, it had risen to $6 billion.

According to Quest Mobile’s data, since March this year, Xiaohongshu’s monthly active users (MAU) and daily active users (DAU) have been steadily rising. In August, its MAU exceeded 130 million, while its DAU exceeded 45 million, both increasing by more than 70% year-on-year.

SEE ALSO: Xiaohongshu to Continue Cracking Down on Ghostwriting Content

About Xiaohongshu

Xiaohongshu is a social media and e-commerce platform often described as “China’s answer to Instagram”.

Edge Medical Robotics Rakes in $200 Million for Business Upgrades and Product Commercialization

On Saturday, Shenzhen-based surgical robot platform Edge Medical Robotics Co., Ltd. Announced the completion of C-Round financing in which it secured over $200 million. Its lead investor in this round was Boyu Capital, while co-leading investors were Temasek and Sequoia China. Existing investors such as 3H Health Investment, LYFE Capital and Guoce Capital also participated in this round. 

The firm’s co-investors include famous companies such as the Chinese State-Owned Enterprises Mixed-Ownership Reform Fund, OrbiMed, Firstred Capital, Greater Bay Area Development Fund, Octagon Capital, Sage Partners, Lingang Blue Bay Capital, and Mirae Asset Group.

Dr. Wang Jianchen, founder of Edge Medical Robotics, said that the new funds are for business upgrades in an all-round way and the rapid commercialization of core products, such as the deep expansion of product R&D, construction of large-scale production bases and training centers, and comprehensive commercial layout.

About Edge Medical Robotics

Edge Medical Robotics was founded in Shenzhen on May 4, 2017 by two doctors who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. The company is committed to providing innovative solutions for futuristic surgery, and now offers technologies such as multi-hole surgical robots and single-hole surgical robots. The company has applied for and been granted more than 400 patents.

AR/VR Startup IrisView Technology Receives $15 Million Capital Injection

On Monday, IrisView Technology announced that it has obtained nearly 100 million yuan ($15.63 million) in Rounds A and A+ of financing, with Jinshajiang Venture Capital and Source Code Capital serving as lead investors, respectively.

According to Source Code Capital, IrisView Technology has worked with a large number of customers. Their customer base ranges from top smartphone manufacturers to providing the underlying systems for a variety of XR products while jointly launching reference designs with ODM manufacturers. The company continues to establish extensive cooperation agreements with upstream and downstream industries.

About IrisView Technology

IrisView Technology was established in 2016 and focuses on building operating systems serving terminal devices such as AR/VR. The company hopes that, through its research and development, it can help the arrival of a space-based internet and promote a more efficient and convenient method of interaction between people and information.

Intelligent Warehousing Firm, WhaleHouse Technology, Completes Series B2 Round Worth $50 Million

Chinese intelligent warehousing enterprise, WhaleHouse Technology, recently completed its B2 round of financing totaling more than $50 million, with XVC, Yunfeng Fund, Defiance, Baidu Ventures and GSR United Capital all serving as investors.

Li Linzi, Founder and CEO of WhaleHouse, said that this round of financing will be directed towards the R&D of new technologies for intelligent storage equipment and the marketing of shared smart warehouses. As the company is able to research, develop and upgrade its equipment, they will be able to further lower the threshold for retailers to use shared smart warehouses, and allow more retailers to utilize the company’s services.

About WhaleHouse Technology

Established in 2014, WhaleHouse is a supplier of intelligent and automated warehouse solutions. In 2018, WhaleHouse launched its Picking Spider System, for which it owns the intellectual property rights. In 2019, WhaleHouse began to provide shared smart warehouses for brand retailers. At present, WhaleHouse provides whole-link smart warehouse solutions, including storage, selecting, distribution, management and assessment, and its customers include Adidas, Nike and Samsung.

SEE ALSO: China VC Weekly: Autonomous Driving, Soft Drinks and HR

Smart Construction Robot R&D Company, Weijian Technology, Raises $16 Million in Series A and A+ Rounds

Weijian Technology, a company that focuses on the R&D of smart construction robots, has recently completed A and A+ rounds of financing worth a total of 100 million yuan ($16 million). The leading investor of the A-round was K2VC, and co-investors were Squoia China, Poly Capital and previous shareholder Linear Capital. The A+ round was exclusively financed by Poly Capital.

100Summit Partners acted as the exclusive financial adviser for both rounds of financing.

This round of investment will be mainly used for research and development, production, and the marketing of plastering and reinforcement robots.

Its founder, Liang Yanxue, has been engaged in the R&D of industrial robot technology for over a decade at Japan’s Fanuc prior to starting his own company. He is known as an authoritative expert in the field of industrial robots.

About Weijian Technology

Weijian Technology was founded in June 2020, and is the only Chinese company in the industry that uses intelligent robots to complete plastering at construction sites. The company now has about 60 staff covering robotics, construction technology, control, autonomous navigation, vision, IoT, AI among other services.