Recently, Shanghai Zhuoyide Robot Co., Ltd. completed a financing of 100 million yuan.
"After the school gave all the ownership of the scientific and technological achievements to our team, Zhuoyide completed the A round of financing." Li Qingdu, a professor at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and the founder of Zhuoyide, said, "The full empowerment reform has clarified the ownership of intellectual property rights and the long-term cooperative relationship between schools and enterprises, which has brought great confidence to our team and investors. "
Zhuoyide was founded in 2021, and the company's founder, Li Qingdu, has been engaged in humanoid robot research for 20 years. In November 2015, he led the team to develop the "Walker 1" robot, which continued to walk 134.03 kilometers and was certified by Guinness World Records. Since then, he has begun to develop the "Xiaobei" humanoid robot, and has completed 4 iterations of the version. The "Xiaobei 4.0" is 1.6 meters tall, weighs only 28 kilograms, and has a battery life of up to 6 hours. This lightweight, safe, low-power robot has great potential to enter homes and factories.
With the rise of artificial intelligence models, humanoid robots have become a popular track for entrepreneurship. Last year, under the guidance of the Shanghai Polytechnic Technology Transfer Center, Li Qingdu approached a number of investment institutions, but the financing process was slow. Liao Yuqing, director of the Technology Transfer Center of Shanghai Institute of Technology, explained: "Investors are very optimistic about the Zhuoyide team and technology, but because some of the company's intellectual property rights are shared by the university and the research team, they are worried that the property rights are not clear and do not dare to invest. "
In response to this problem, Shanghai Institute of Technology launched the reform of empowering scientific and technological achievements this year. In July, the "Administrative Measures for the Pilot Reform of the Empowerment of Scientific and Technological Achievements of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology" was released. According to this document, Li Qingdu's team signed a contract with the school to obtain a service invention patent and a proprietary technology. Joytech will pay 20% of the third-party appraisal price of the scientific and technological achievements to SPC as the empowerment consideration; As the company is registered in the National University Science and Technology Park of Shanghai Polytechnic University, the weighted consideration is reduced to 10% of the appraised price; In the future, the company will "feed" to the school in the form of entrusted projects to form a win-win long-term cooperative relationship.
The reform was immediate, and two months after signing the contract, Zhuoyide received a total investment of 100 million yuan from a number of institutions.
At present, Zhuoyide Robot mainly provides intelligent robot solutions around scientific research and education, interactive services, family health care and other scenarios, and is committed to creating "the safest and most practical humanoid robot".
At the end of 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots", proposing to establish an innovation system by 2025, complete machine products to reach the international advanced level, and by 2027, the comprehensive strength of the industry to reach the world's advanced level, and other development goals, pushing the humanoid robot industry to a new height.
In February this year, Goldman Sachs raised its forecast for the size of the global robot market to $38 billion in 2035, and shipments are expected to increase fourfold to 1.4 million units. Musk also made a commitment at the shareholders' meeting, saying that Tesla will start "limited production" of the Optimus Prime robot in 2025. He said that humanoid robots will be 10 times more popular than cars.
Today, the development of China's humanoid robot industry has exceeded the expectations of countless people. The whole society is full of confidence in the humanoid robot industry. According to incomplete statistics from China Robot Network, in the first half of 2024 (January to June) alone, there have been 13 domestic humanoid robot investment and financing events, with a total financing amount of more than 2.5 billion yuan.
We also expect that China's humanoid robot industry can connect intelligence and move towards the new, so as to provide strong new quality productivity for boosting the high-quality development of China's science and technology and empowering thousands of industries.