Chinese logistics robot maker VisionNav raises $76 million at a $500 million valuation – TechCrunch
Industrial robotics has in recent years become one of the hottest technology fields in China. encourage the use of advanced technology to improve efficiency on the production floor.
VisionNav Robotics, which specializes in the production of automatic forklift trucks, stackers and other logistics robots, is the latest sponsored industrial robot manufacturer from China. Shenzhen-based automated guide vehicle (AGV) startup has raised 500 million yuan (about $76 million) from a Series C expansion round led by Chinese food delivery giant Meituan. Quoc and 5Y Capital, a well-known domestic venture capital firm, take the lead. Its current investors IDG, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun’s Shunwei Capital also participated in the round.
Founded in 2016 by a team of PhDs from the University of Tokyo and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, VisionNav’s valuation was raised to more than $500 million in this round, up from $393 million just six months ago. before it raised 300 million yuan (US$47 million) in a Series C funding, it told TechCrunch.
The new funding will allow VisionNav to invest in R&D and expand its use cases, expanding from a focus on horizontal and vertical movement to other functions such as stacking and loading.
The key to adding new categories is training and improving the startup’s software algorithms, not hardware development, said Don Dong, the company’s vice president of global sales. new. “From control, to dispatch, to sensors, we’re going to have to improve our entire software capabilities.”
A major challenge for robots is to perceive and navigate the world around them effectively, said Dong. The problem with camera-based autonomous driving solutions, like Tesla’s, is that it can be easily affected by glare. Lidar, a heralded sensing technology for more accurate distance detection, was still too expensive for mass adoption a few years ago, but it has seen its price drop significantly by players. China like Livox belongs to DJI and Robosense.
“Previously, we mainly provided in-house solutions. Now that we’re expanding into driverless truckloads, usually semi-outdoors, we’ll inevitably be operating in bright light. That is why we are adapting the combination of vision and radar technology to navigate our robot,” said Dong.
VisionNav see Seegrid is based in Pittsburgh and France-based Balyo are international competitors but believe they have a “price advantage” in China, where their manufacturing and R&D operations are located. The startup has already sent the robot to clients in Southeast Asia, East Asia, as well as the Netherlands, UK and Hungary. It is in the process of establishing subsidiaries in Europe and the United States.
The startup works with system integrators to sell its robots, which means it doesn’t collect detailed customer information, making it simpler to comply with data in overseas markets. The company expects to make 50-60% of its revenue overseas in the next few years, compared with the current rate of 30-40%. The US is one of their main target markets, Dong said, as the forklift industry there generates “greater total revenue than China despite having a smaller number of forklifts.”
Last year, VisionNav raked in total sales of between 200 million ($31 million) and 250 million yuan ($39 million). It currently operates a team of around 400 people across China and expects to reach 1,000 employees this year by aggressively hiring overseas.
