Gosion-Robot (国巡机器人), a mobile inspection robot startup, recently closed a pre-Series A financing round worth tens of millions of yuan, invested by Daocin Capital and Tsing Ventures.
Proceeds from this round will go mainly toward product R&D and sale, according to a statement issued by the company.
The company, headquartered in Hangzhou of eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, specializes in the application of robots for smart safety inspection in industrial areas and other safety operations.
The startup boasts a variety of inspection robots that are widely adopted in segments such as power generation, mining, petrochemical, smelting, electricity grid and public transportation.
The company’s robots either move along rails overhead to train cameras on equipment in need of scrutiny, or autonomously navigate the factory floor to perform tasks.
The firm, which was founded in 2021 and completed its angel+ round of funding in December last year, taps mainly into two application scenarios: power generation and mining.
In 2021, coal-fired power constituted over 70% of China’s electricity output, giving rise to an immense market for unmanned safety inspection, especially for the screening of coal conveyor systems.
Currently, this screening is done mostly manually by human laborers on the patrol, but this somehow proves risky and inaccurate.
Compounding the matter is the hiring difficulty confronting many coal mine owners, as many shun these types of jobs over health and safety concerns.
Robots thus have emerged as an increasingly sought-after alternative, and that’s where startups like Gosion came in.
Gosion once told 36Kr, a tech media outlet, that it now ranks No.1 nationwide in terms of rail-guided inspection robots catering to coal-fired power stations.
