SoftBank leads $15M spherical for China’s industrial robotic maker Youibot
SoftBank has picked its wager in China’s flourishing industrial robotics dwelling. Youibot, a four-year-ragged startup that makes self reliant mobile robots for a big selection of scenarios, said it has notched end to 100 million yuan ($15.47 million) in its most traditional funding spherical led by SoftBank Ventures Asia, the Seoul-based early-stage arm of the arena investment behemoth.
In December, SoftBank Ventures Asia led the financing spherical for one other Chinese language robotics startup known as KeenOn, which makes a speciality of offer and service robots.
Youibot’s previous investors BlueRun Ventures and SIG also participated within the spherical. The startup, based in Shenzhen where it went thru SOSV’s HAX hardware accelerator program, secured three financing rounds all the method thru 2020 as businesses and investors embrace industrial automation to within the good deal of human contact. Youibot has raised over 200 million yuan to this point.
Founded by a team of PhDs from China’s prestigious Xi’an Jiaotong College, Youibot develops alternate solutions for manufacturing facility automation, logistics management, besides as inspection and maintenance for diversified industries. As an illustration, its robots can navigate around a yard of buses, accumulate out about every tire of the autos and present a detailed picture for upkeep, a feature that helped it rack up Michelin’s contract.
Youibot’s “strongest suits” are in electronics manufacturing and electric power patrol, the firm’s spokesperson fast TechCrunch.
The startup is also seeing excessive disclose in its semiconductor business, with customers coming from loads of prominent entrance-stay wafer fabs, which exercise the company’s robots for chip packaging, checking out, and wafer manufacturing. Youibot declined to dispute their names due to confidentiality.
Chinese language customers that it named consist of CRRC Zhuzhou, a direct-owned locomotive manufacturer, Huaneng Neighborhood, a direct-owned electrical energy abilities big, Huawei, and additional. China currently comprises 80% of Youibot’s entire revenues whereas in a international nation markets are by shock catching up. The company’s revenues tripled final year from 2020.
Youibot plans to exercise the unusual proceeds on study and constructing in its mobile robots and propietary utility, crew constructing and market expansion.