Ubtech Robotics, a Los Angeles, CA-based maker of intelligent humanoid robots, completed an USD$820m Series C funding.
The round, which brings the market valuation of the company to USD$5 billion, was led by Tencent, with participation from CDH Investments, ICBC, Haier, Minsheng Securities, Telstra, Easyhome Furnishings, Chia Tai Group, China Minsheng Bank, China Film and TV Capital, CGN, Sichuan Railway Investment Group, Green Pine Capital Partners, Whale Capital, and Shenzhen JinFuZi Network Technology.
The company intends to use the funds to increase investment in large-size humanoid robots, humanoid robot servo, gait planning and motion control algorithms, computer vision, and more, accelerate its deployment in the global market and improve its brand awareness worldwide, continue its plan to hire workers from around the world.
Founded in 2012 by James Zhou, Chief Executive Officer, Ubtech offers a broad, open ecosystem of robot innovations, from entry level consumer products, to educational tools, to advanced devices offering complex capabilities solving difficult challenges.
The company’s consumer humanoid robots include its Alpha series interactive system of robotic building blocks; JIMU™ Robot; the Cloud-based intelligent humanoid service robot Cruzr; and the Star Wars™ First Order Stormtrooper Robot (in partnership with Disney).
Today, Ubtech’s products, which include gait planning and motion control algorithms, computer vision, machine learning, emotion recognition, and SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping), are sold in more than 40 countries and regions, including China, North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, at over 7,000 retail outlets around the globe, including nearly 500 Apple stores worldwide.
As part of its investment, Tencent will work closely with Ubtech Robotics on future product development. Tencent has already worked with the company, launching the humanoid robot Qrobot Alpha last December, which features the Tencent Cloud Xiaowei service; and the personalized educational robot Alpha Ebot in February, which integrates open AI services and interactivity of the Tencent Dingdang assistant.
FinSMEs
07/05/2018