DareRobot (帝尔博格), a smart industrial robot developer, has completed an angel round of funding valued at tens of millions of yuan, backed exclusively by Bluerun Ventures.
Proceeds from this round will be plunged into iteration of its standard products, the company said in a press release.
Founded in 2022, the Shenzhen-based startup is committed to fostering substitution of human labor by robots in industrial manufacturing scenarios.
Zhang Ben, founder and CEO of DareRobot, said many workflows in heavy industry manufacturing are characterized by discrete production, meaning the processes come in small batches, are flexible and often feature non-standard protocol.
This defies a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, human labor is required, involving vastly different processes than in light manufacturing, Zhang was quoted as saying.
Besides, the massive number of non-standard parts in heavy industry poses a barrier to mass adoption of robots, as the robotic operational programs need to be reconfigured from time to time.
“Once a material is changed, robots need to be artificially reconfigured and programmed,” said Zhang, the CEO. “In fact, robots cannot relieve man of the workload completely.”
DareRobot seeks to combine hardware like sensors and AI algorithms to roll out smart robotic workstations, allowing robots to undertake autonomous perception, data processing, operational route planning and motion control, among other tasks.
The ultimate goal is to enable fully independent operation of industrial robots in heavy manufacturing sectors, to minimize the role of human intervention.
Specifically, DareRobot can provide robotic workstations of different sizes and types, catering to material handling, cutting, sanding, welding and spray-painting.
At the same time, all its workstations adopt a modular design, whereby part of the hardware and software can be interchanged and shared.
DareRobot stakes its reputation on efficient delivery, saying it is able to deploy the technologies in the space of two to three months.
Going forward, DareRobot looks to promote multi-machine coordination, to realize collaboration between different robotic workstations even if they are engaged in different tasks.
The company builds unmanned smart workstations and flexible production lines based on visual and motion control algorithms, Bluerun Ventures said of DareRobot.
“We are very upbeat about the trend of diversified needs of clients from heavy industry as well as digitalization and flexible manufacturing in this domain,” the venture capital firm added.
