Another robot seed star is born.
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Author | Huang Yu
Editor | Wang Xiaojuan
The development of global artificial intelligence is in full swing; AI is evolving from large models to the physical world, with embodied intelligence and robotics becoming the core carriers. Industry giants such as Tesla, Nvidia, Huawei, and Alibaba are entering the field, and many star robotics companies have emerged domestically, such as the explosively popular Unitree Robotics and Zhiyuan Robotics this year.
And along the wide and expansive embodied intelligence industry chain, another seed star has emerged and attracted the favor of numerous investment institutions.
Wallstreetcn has learned that recently, Xense Robotics, a leading company in embodied tactile technology, announced the completion of a 100 million yuan Pre-A round of financing, the third round completed by the company this year.
This round of financing is quite impressive, led by Funteng Capital (Shanghai Embodied Intelligence Fund), joined by well-known industry funds such as Li Auto, Binfu Capital, and KESI Capital; meanwhile existing shareholders Hillhouse Ventures, Yuanhe Origin, and Gobi Partners have all doubled down.
Amidst the embodied intelligence development boom, Xense Robotics is undoubtedly one of the fastest runners.
Founded in May 2024 and headquartered in Shanghai, Xense Robotics is a high-tech company centered around multimodal tactile perception technology and focused on dexterous manipulation by intelligent agents. It is committed to empowering intelligent agents with tactile perception through innovative touch, enabling them to understand the real world, and advancing embodied intelligence from fine manipulation to general perception.
In less than a year and a half, Xense Robotics has already received investment from many renowned institutions, including Hillhouse Ventures, Puyue China, Jiaoda Hanyuan Fund, Zhiyuan Robotics, Yuanhe Origin, and Gobi Partners.
In this 100 million yuan Pre-A round, Xense Robotics has assembled state-owned funds, top industrial capital, and leading market-oriented VCs, highlighting its strong influence in capital markets and further supporting its strategic development and the application and promotion of its tactile perception technology in real industrial scenarios.
Wallstreetcn learned from Xense that this round of financing will be used to accelerate the company's layout in technology R&D, product iteration, team expansion, and market development, further strengthening Xense Robotics' leading position in embodied intelligent tactile manipulation and perception.
How has a startup less than one and a half years old managed to attract joint bets from top market-oriented institutions and industry capital?
The answer points to the most critical and scarce link in the landing of embodied intelligence—tactile technology. The industry and investors have reached a consensus that touch is the core element for robots to achieve refined operation and perceptive interaction with warmth.
For a long time, robots have mainly relied on vision for operation, but vision has many limitations, such as blind spots, occlusion, light variation, and so forth. As a result, robots have found it difficult to break through in complex tasks such as precision assembly, dynamic interaction, flexible object grasping, and human-machine collaboration. This has become a chasm between robots that can "see" and those that can "do".
Tactile technology is the key to bridging the limitations of vision. As Wang Guanda, General Manager of the Beijing Business Center of KESI Capital, put it: "The ability of tactile perception directly influences the interaction effect between the model world and the physical world. It is one of the key technical bottlenecks in the landing of embodied intelligence scenarios."
In Wang Guanda's view, Xense Robotics, based on visual-tactile sensors, can provide physical information of three-dimensional force field distribution and tactile images on the contact surface with high precision and multi-modality, meeting the needs of different types of customers such as motion control and model training. Meanwhile, the company’s founder was a core member of the MIT team internationally earliest researching the combination of touch and robot precision control applications, and the team's exteroceptive perception theoretical research results have been recognized by top international conferences.
It is reported that the founder of Xense Robotics, Ma Daolin, through the integration of high-precision multimodal tactile sensing systems and his deep background in mechanics and operations, was the first in the world to propose a new path for robot operation based on "building spatial perception through touch". He also independently developed a new, stable, and reliable visual-tactile software architecture and hardware system adaptable to multiple scenarios, achieving a closed loop of robot "contact-perception-control".
In addition, the person in charge at Funteng Capital believes that physical intelligence is at the forefront and is the most anticipated challenge in AI development, determining whether AI can enter the physical world. Therefore, data and intelligence in physical interaction are the key cornerstones of physical intelligence. Xense Robotics, focusing on visual-tactile perception technology, is dedicated to solving the perception and intelligence challenges of physical interaction and is currently the only company on the market capable of offering fingertip sensing capabilities surpassing those of humans.
At the same time, the person also stated that embodied intelligence is a key strategic direction in Shanghai. As a native Shanghai innovative enterprise, Xense Robotics takes industrial embodiment as its starting point to provide core tactile perception and control modules for the embodied intelligence and humanoid robotics industries, developing a core technology system for comprehensive physical interaction for intelligent agents. Its clear and pragmatic path to technology commercialization gives Funteng confidence in its development prospects.
Relying exactly on its complete technical route from "high-precision multimodal tactile perception system to intelligent control algorithm," as well as verified commercial capabilities in various industry scenarios, Xense Robotics has become a scarce "seed" star in the eyes of capital.
Additionally, Xense Robotics has the most comprehensive product matrix layout in the industry.
Currently, Xense Robotics has developed a full range of tactile sensors, tactile data acquisition systems, tactile simulators, tactile actuators, and tactile control systems for all application scenarios. The company's self-developed high-precision multimodal tactile sensors combined with intelligent perception and intelligent control algorithms create a full-chain technical route covering multi-dimensional perception, intelligent decision-making, and system implementation.
In other words, Xense Robotics is not just a sensor company but also a "tactile intelligent perception" solution and platform company.
At present, Xense Robotics’ products have taken the lead in being validated and applied in scenarios such as embodied dexterous manipulation, industrial precision assembly, tactile inspection, flexible logistics, and household intelligent agents.
According to Wallstreetcn, Xense Robotics' products have been recognized by leading industry clients and have formed close collaborations with Zhiyuan, Zibianliang, Li Auto, L’Oreal China, Haier, and Google DeepMind, among others.
Since the end of 2022, with the wave of AI large models, embodied intelligence has clearly heated up. Since the beginning of 2025, with continued breakthroughs in AI large model technology, the industrialization process of embodied intelligence has been significantly boosted.
Domestically, companies like Unitree and Zhiyuan are continually announcing progress, while overseas startups Figure and 1X are launching products one after another. Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, Xiaomi, and Xpeng have all announced increased investment in AI and embodied intelligence.
Lin Junyang, technical lead of Alibaba Tongyi Qianwen, recently revealed that Qwen has already set up an embodied intelligence group internally, marking Alibaba's formal entry into physical AI.
Many industry leaders are very optimistic about the future of embodied intelligence. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang publicly stated that the era of robotics has arrived, that embodied intelligence is the next wave of artificial intelligence, and that in the future humanoid robots will be as popular as cars.
Zhang Zhengyou, Tencent’s Chief Scientist and Director of Robotics X Lab, pointed out that in the long run, robots will definitely enter thousands of households. He believes, as Musk predicted, that the future number of robots may reach 10 billion; otherwise, Tencent would not have created a robotics lab.
Policy momentum will also be an important driving force for the development of embodied intelligence. For the first time ever, "embodied intelligence" was included in the 2025 Government Work Report. Beijing, Shenzhen, and more than ten other provinces and cities have introduced action plans, all with the goal of achieving an industry scale of hundreds of billions.
Morgan Stanley predicts that by 2050, one billion humanoid robots will have been deployed worldwide, with a market size of $5 trillion.
Against the backdrop of accelerated commercial adoption of embodied intelligence, tactile technology also has a huge incremental market gap. According to data from international market research firm VMR, the global market for tactile sensors exceeded $15 billion in 2024 and will surpass $35 billion in the coming years. With the rise of embodied intelligence and intelligent perceptive interaction, the tactile market is expected to exceed $1 trillion.
In this crucial battle for dominance in the "digitalization of the physical world," nobody wants to miss out. Innovative companies like Xense Robotics, which boast core technology and a clear commercialization path, are steadily making the goal of "enabling robots to perceive the physical world" a reality.
Risk Warning and DisclaimerThere are risks in the market, investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it take into account the individual user's special investment objectives, financial situation, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their particular circumstances. Investment based on this is at your own risk. ```