According to 36Kr, a tech company dedicated to the development of humanoid robots has accelerated its evolution and recently announced the completion of a亿元人民币 Pre-A round of financing. This round of financing was jointly invested by Bi'an Times, Minbank International, Zhongguancun Science City, and iCANX Fund, with existing shareholder Innova Angel also participating. The company stated that the funds will primarily be used to build a universal body and enhance software development capabilities.
"Accelerated Evolution" CEO Cheng Hao believes that the current humanoid robot boom is driven by AI. He emphasized that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) requires a new carrier, especially one that can influence the physical world. Therefore, the company's goal is to promote the transformation of humanoid robots from specialization to generalization.
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To achieve this goal, "Accelerated Evolution's" first-stage commercial positioning is to provide developers with a universal bipedal robot and motion control algorithm development platform. This allows developers to train robots to perform various tasks in different scenarios based on the company's hardware products and software platform, thereby driving a change in productivity.
Unlike many humanoid robot companies that choose wheeled forms, "Accelerated Evolution" opted for the more challenging bipedal form. Cheng Hao explained that bipedals are more versatile and can adapt to most life scenarios, "capable of doing everything a human can do." The company currently provides developers with the "Booster T1," a bipedal humanoid robot that stands 1.1 meters tall, weighs 29 kilograms, and has ample movement capabilities and stability.
"Accelerated Evolution" is exploring various application scenarios to achieve high generalization and multi-scene applications. For example, at this year's World Robot Conference, the company demonstrated the robot playing soccer, which not only showcased the robot's intelligence and generalization understanding capabilities but also attracted widespread attention from the audience.
In terms of commercialization, "Accelerated Evolution" has already received commercial orders for humanoid robots and plans to deliver a small batch by the end of the year. The company has also initiated a new round of financing.
In terms of team strength, "Accelerated Evolution" founder and CEO Cheng Hao graduated from Tsinghua University and has nearly a decade of experience in large-scale product development. The company's chief scientist, Zhao Guoming, is a researcher at the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, and has focused on legged bionics, brain-like robots, and system research for the past 20 years.
This round of financing and technological development by "Accelerated Evolution" indicates that the field of humanoid robots is attracting increasing investment and attention. With the advancement of AI technology and continuous optimization of robot hardware, we may soon see more general-purpose humanoid robots applied in various scenarios. This will not only drive the development of the robotics industry but could also have a profound impact on future work and lifestyles.