36氪 was informed that Beijing Soft Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “SRT”) announced the completion of a new round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan. This round of financing was jointly invested by Yizhuang State Investment and Xinchuang Phase I Fund, and Xinghan Capital served as the long-term exclusive financial advisor. .
soft robot
Founded in 2016, Soft Robot is an innovative technology company based on soft robot technology. The company has the whole process of design, manufacture and related control technology of soft robots. At present, SRT’s products have been used in semiconductor, fresh food, 3C, auto parts, medical equipment and other industries.
Technological principle-level innovation to solve the problem of my country’s industrial upgrading
According to a report released by the IFR (International Federation of Robotics), the existing industry has only solved about 3%-4% of the rules and the handling of rigid items, and the remaining 96% of flexible, special-shaped, and vulnerable items must still be handled manually. Limited by this, a large number of manufacturing fields in my country still rely heavily on manpower, and it is difficult to achieve automation upgrades.
For example, in the field of the automobile industry, the lampshade of some car brands has a unique shape, and it is almost impossible to complete the transfer with traditional fixtures; while in some high-end cosmetics or luxury packaging, the use of traditional fixtures will inevitably produce scratches, these problems have led to Continued high levels of manual involvement.
At the same time, with the continuous increase of labor costs in my country’s manufacturing industry, the supply of labor is decreasing year by year. Automation and intelligence are the only way for my country’s manufacturing transformation and upgrading.
Gao Shaolong, CEO of Soft Robotics, said that the application scenarios of global industrial robots are generally only concentrated in the handling and loading and unloading links. In the case of obvious pain points in the transfer of flexible special-shaped and fragile items, the innovative end-effector independently developed by SRT imitates the repetitive labor of human hands. It solves the problems of special-shaped and fragile items in the field of sorting and packaging, and improves the degree of industrial automation and industry efficiency.
Soft robotics is an emerging discipline that integrates bionics research, intelligent materials and intelligent control. It involves elastomer material technology, soft robot structure design, complex elastomer integral molding technology and flexible body control technology. It is interdisciplinary and complex technology. higher degree. Biomimetic from octopus claws, the software robot can realize the adaptive wrapping and grasping of objects, so as to realize the safe and non-destructive grasping and handling of many flexible special-shaped and fragile workpieces in the industrial field, and push the global robot technology application to a wider scene.
SRT’s current main products include flexible gripper SFG, balloon-type inner support fixture ISC, balloon-type outer support fixture OSC, linear drive flexible gripper SLG, van der Waals force suction cup VFC, etc., as well as automated solutions and medical aids developed from this. Wait. In the scene of grasping flexible special-shaped and vulnerable parts, the flexible gripper of SRT can cover the target, and the special superelastic material can grasp the part without damaging the surface of the target, and the grasping force is more accurate. Controllable.
SRT product grabs egg yolk
Starting from soft robotics technology, providing industrial solutions and leading the transformation and upgrading of traditional manufacturing
The flexible technology of soft robots is a subversion and impact on traditional rigid robot technology. Soft robot technology supports many traditional industries to achieve leapfrog development from manual production to automated production.
Gao Shaolong said that the service life is an important performance indicator of the flexible gripper. At present, the service life of some grippers in the industry is only tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of times. In some high-frequency grasping scenarios, it needs to be replaced frequently, while SRT The life of the clamping jaws is more than 3 million times, which greatly reduces the cost of use for customers.
With the continuous accumulation of customers and industries, in addition to selling related hardware products, SRT will also provide overall automation solutions for specific industries, including building unmanned intelligent factories, digital platforms, etc., to achieve full digital production in industrial scenarios. At present, SRT has completed solutions in various industries such as thermos cups, prepared dishes, and medical supplies. SRT has covered 20 industries and more than 400 industrial customers.
SRT thermos cup production line
From a market point of view, SRT was born out of the top laboratories of Harvard & Beihang University, and has more than 150 patents, including the international patent of the highly technical dual-channel flexible gripper structure. It has strong technical strength, which is also the core advantage of SRT.
SRT currently has more than 250 employees, most of which are located in Beijing, and has its own production base in Zhangjiagang. Gao Shaolong said that the company has tripled its revenue for many consecutive years. In the future, SRT will expand into more industries, and accumulate solutions to realize the transformation and upgrading of target industries.
Investor said:
Yizhuang Guotou said: China is a major manufacturing country in the world. With the disappearance of the demographic dividend and the improvement of automation technology, the upgrading of industrial automation is imminent. SRT is committed to providing overall automation industry solutions for the industrial field. It can not only effectively solve the automatic handling of special-shaped and fragile items in the industrial industry, but also provide enterprises with an overall solution for automation upgrades. The technical advantages of its products have also been passed on by word of mouth among customers. At present, it has covered many industrial customers, deeply penetrated into various industries such as thermos cups, pre-made dishes and medical treatment, and provided overall automation solutions. Demonstrated strong customer stickiness and business growth. We continue to pay attention to the upgrading of China’s industrial automation, and believe that SRT can contribute to China’s industrial automation.
The first phase of Xinchuang Fund said: SRT is a rare enterprise with unique technical advantages in the field of automation, and it is a typical “specialized and special new” enterprise. The company’s team has both strategic vision and landing ability, and has the ability to convert the company’s characteristic technical advantages into commercial value. Through the pyramid-shaped business structure, it has achieved low-cost acquisition of customers by relying on characteristic flexible end effectors, relying on polishing customer process packages to increase the unit price of customers in key industries, and relying on machine standardization to obtain economies of scale. “Little Giants” and Hidden Champion Enterprises. Xinchuang Fund I is honored to have the opportunity to work with the excellent corporate team of SRT to contribute to the transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry.
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