China's robot market is expected to reach 83.9 billion yuan in 2021, with industrial robots worth 44.57 billion yuan, according to an industry report titled "China Robot Industry Development Report (2021)" at the recently held World Robot Conference 2021.
Industrial robots are already seen as the hardware necessary to profoundly reshape the future of manufacturing over the next decade.
In 2020, China's robot industry exceeded 100 billion yuan for the first time, with more than 300,000 robot-related enterprises nationwide. Among them, China's industrial robot market has ranked first in the world for 8 consecutive years, and nearly half of the world's installed machines in 2020 came from China.
Today, China has become an indispensable and key link in the world's industrial robot industry. In April this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with relevant departments to draft the "14th Five-Year" intelligent manufacturing development plan (draft), and the "14th Five-year" robot industry development plan is also being vigorously promoted.
In these good news, China's industrial robots into an accelerated outbreak period. By October 2021, a total of 70 financing events have taken place in China's industrial robot enterprises, with a total financing amount of nearly 20 billion YUAN. And the number and amount of financing events have exceeded the annual financing in 2020.
And meituan, Byte, Tencent and other major factories, have rushed to invest in industrial robots. And investment institutions, including Hillhouse and Wuyuan, also made frequent moves and continuously increased the volume.
In an earnings call in March, Meituan CEO Wang Xing cited robotics as one of the key verticals for his company's investments. Wang said robots can help local living businesses improve efficiency and reduce costs.
A month later, Meituan Strategic Investment led a series C round of Mecamand, a provider of "3D vision +AI+ robotics" solutions. Over the next six months, Meituan continued to increase the number of robotics companies it had invested in, including Purdue Technologies, Mecamander and Goxian robotics.
Hillhouse's investment layout covers industrial robots, collaborative robots, intelligent construction robots, etc. In September, Siling robotics announced it had completed a Series C funding round valued at more than $1 billion. Hillhouse Venture Capital, as the earliest and largest external investment institution of Siling, continued to raise bets in this round.
Siling Robotics was founded in 2018, with double headquarters in Munich and Beijing. The founding team of the company mostly comes from DLR/RMC, which first proposed and successfully developed the force controlled robot series (LWR I-LWR IV).
Siling focuses on the building of intelligent robot software and hardware systems. At present, siling has launched robot operating system (Agilecore.OS), intelligent ability control robot, humanoid five-finger dexterous hand, intelligent flexible robot operating platform (FIP) and other products, which have been landed in many fields such as industry, medical, agriculture, education and service.
Liang Li, Founding partner of Hillhouse, said, "Siling Robotics is a technology innovation company that Hillhouse has invested in for several rounds since the seed round. Siling Robotics has developed a set of robots and robot underlying operating system with high intelligence, strong deep learning ability, adaptability and stability, bringing subversion and innovation to industrial applications."
Hillhouse believes that, according to the "2025 Intelligent Manufacturing" plan, digitalization and intelligence is the definite development direction of China's industry. A large number of industrial enterprises begin to actively seek automation solutions, and the market acceptance and recognition of domestic robots are greatly improved.
In the field of industrial robots, Hillhouse believes that the market prospect of collaborative robots is broad, "especially with the large-scale landing in automotive, 3C, medical, commercial and other fields, the industry will enter the explosive period in the next two years".
For example, The Fa-Ao robot invested by Hillhouse has the self-research and self-production capacity of the whole industrial chain, and creates universal robot products.
But going further, Hillhouse argues that "robots are not an end in themselves, but rather a manifestation or an important part of the entire intelligent manufacturing industry." As an industrial power, China exports an endless stream of goods to the world; And to become one of the signs of industrial power, depends on whether we can export advanced production capacity to the world.
Thinking Chen Zhaopeng founder, says Dr Robot is a robot in spirit to create a fundamental breakthrough, through the world's leading robot operating system and the unique combination of high sensitivity robot, a new generation of intelligent robot was applied to intelligent precision assembly and medical fields, broken only by the limits of human involvement.
For ByteDance, laying out the robot track is a must-do in this new phase: In early August, Future Robot secured a new round of funding, and Byte is behind it. Bytedance has invested in 10 robotics and advanced manufacturing companies so far, three a month at its peak.
Most of byte's robotics companies have the label "logistics" : start with robot hardware, and try out lightweight robot hardware; After that, first-line investment institutions invest in mature enterprises. When the robot industry is ripe, they need to invest in "logistics" robot companies and make up the investment in basic RESEARCH and development at the bottom.
Take cloud whale intelligence and future robotics. Zhang Junbin, the post-90s founder of Yunjing Intelligence, founded the sweeping robot company in Dongguan songshan Lake Robot Industrial Base in 2016 under the tutelage of PROFESSOR Li Zexiang, chairman of DJI. Bytedance participated in two rounds of financing for Cloud Whale within two months last year. Hillhouse Venture Capital mentioned above also participated in the investment of Cloud Whale in the same round.
Liu Yunhui, founder of Future Robot, is an internationally renowned expert in robotics and automation technology. The three core technologies of the future -- visual navigation (vision and nerves), precise control (hands and feet) and cloud computing (5G) fusion (brain) -- will solve the pressing problems of automating warehousing and logistics.
At the same time, Byte has continuously invested in several mature robot companies with similar business in logistics and warehousing, including Gazhi Technology, Winhe Robot, Syrius Torch and so on.
Much of what has happened in 2021 has been in the early rounds of early-stage companies. 77.9 percent of investment in industrial robotics this year took place before Series C. And almost all industrial robot enterprises go to round B, the starting springboard of a single financing amount is at the level of 100 million yuan.
At the same time, Songshan Lake in Dongguan has become a landmark for robot investors to clock in. In addition to Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Kunshan, Wuhu, Changzhou and other places are vigorously developing and supporting China's robot industry.
The current robot competition has gradually moved towards the era of contention of a hundred schools of thought. In the future, the industry will become increasingly fragmented, and the customers that players in the industry will serve will become increasingly segmented.
China's industrial robot market is far from finished.
It is the characteristic development path of China's industrial robot industry. China's automated army is a late starter, but it is rising at an astonishing rate.
China has the world's largest manufacturing base, in addition to the world's largest number of machines installed in Qianjing, a large number of application scenarios have become a fertile ground for innovation of industrial robot start-ups.
At present, a batch of domestic replacement enterprises have run out, another wave of up-and-comers are leading the world trend, standing on the world stage, hoping to put the story of Chinese industrial robots from domestic replacement to domestic transcendent.
About Manly
More than 12 years of experience in producing lithium battery cells and battery packs for various applications. Welcome to send your requiry to info@manlybattery.com
