Daimon Robotics (戴盟机器人), a developer of mobile humanoid robots, has raised tens of millions of yuan from an angel round, backed exclusively by Kinzon Capital, with the proceeds going toward product R&D and mass production.
Founded in December 2021, the Shenzhen-based startup is dedicated to the design and manufacturing of general-purpose humanoid robots that can truly meet needs for commercial adoption.
Applications include smart manufacturing, logistics and commercial services, among others.
Daimon Robotics chose to venture into humanoid robotics after its founder and CEO Duan Jianghua made many trips to manufacturing companies.
Although many factories utilize a large number of AGVs, AMRs and unmanned forklifts to automate their operations, he found that humans still play an indispensable role.
Despite the technologies at their disposal, factories continue to rely on frontline employees to manually load materials onto transportation vehicles or handle materials and parts.
This has served as a wake-up call to Duan, who founded Daimon Robotics together with Dr. Wang Yu, a professor best known as the founding father of Robotics Institute of HKUST alongside Li Zexiang, legendary mentor of DJI.
Wang wears multiple hats. He is also former chairman of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.
Something in between
According to Duan, the reality at many factories calls for a type of robot that is highly adaptive and capable of learning to perform tasks by itself.
“[It] can move autonomously while also executing commands with agility,” said Duan, who received his doctorate from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is a postdoctoral fellow at HKUST.
Daimon Robotics started out by targeting use cases that are easy to handle for AGVs or forklifts but prove difficult for human carriers.
As an alternative, it came up with a humanoid robot sitting on a mobile chassis.
The robot possesses dual arms that can grip and move objects of different sizes and weights, and set them down at different heights of shelves or storage racks within factories or warehouses.
Image credit: Pexels
Daimon Robotics said this device is highly adaptive to multiple scenarios, such as the electronic, new energy and semiconductor industries, where flexible material transferring is required.
The startup announced it had partnered with several leading companies, without specifying.
Fine motor skills
Following the mobile humanoid transporter, Daimon Robotics this year will launch its second such product, but with extra agility in its hands.
The new release is expected to replace humans in performing fine motor skills in delivery of commercial services.
Yao Haibo, founding partner at Kinzon Capital, the financial backer, said the venture fund had “systemically” researched and invested into several companies before the humanoid robot sector gained exposure.
“We believe the former chairman of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and a CEO with research, engineering and executive skills, will make a powerful match and create some chemistry,” said Yao. “[And that will] help Daimon become the country’s first truly commercialized humanoid robot company.”
