China’s Tesla challenger Xpeng isn’t content material with simply making electrical automobiles. It’s additionally betting on ridable robotic unicorns for youths.
Xpeng Robotics, a bionic robotic maker affiliated with Xpeng, simply raised a powerful $100 million in a Sequence A spherical led by IDG Capital, at a time when enterprise investments are slowing in China.
Different buyers embrace Xpeng itself and a few undisclosed backers. It’s unclear how a lot management Xpeng has over Xpeng Robotics following the most recent spherical. However given their shared model affiliation, it gained’t be shocking the 2 corporations are intently tied up — a minimum of on the event entrance. Applied sciences like autonomous driving that Xpeng has been engaged on are simply relevant to the robotic enterprise.
Certainly, as Xpeng’s chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng mentioned in a press release:
“I additionally consider that sooner or later, producers of good vehicles may even be producers of good robots… As a part of our mission as a know-how innovator and explorer, we’ll proceed to offer help to Xpeng Robotics.”
Xpeng Robotics calls itself an “ecosystem firm” of Xpeng.
Based in 2016, Xpeng Robotics’s first product is a quadruped robotic that may navigate autonomously and work together with people. In a 3D teaser revealed final September, the pony-like robotic is seen nodding and blinking to a child — and using him round. In one other video shot in actual life, the horse is transporting snacks round an workplace in response to voice instructions and trailing behind a human.
We’ve seen quite a lot of companion robots, like Shenzhen-based Elephant Robotics’ cutesy bionic cat, however few are of the dimensions of Xpeng Robotics’s pony, which is as tall as a child. One can think about the R&D prices poured into discovering a product-market match for the quadruped robotic and truly making it work.
Six years into operation, Xpeng Robotics nonetheless has not set a supply date for its robots, although it mentioned in its press launch that it expects “clever robots to enter households within the subsequent two years.” The venture is clearly not one thing that may be undertaken by a scruffy startup with out the backing from a deep-pocketed patron.
The funding will enable Xpeng Robotics to deepen its R&D funding in robotic {hardware} and software program, rent “top-tier expertise,” and speed up product growth and iteration.
The startup is headquartered within the world {hardware} hub Shenzhen with R&D facilities in Guangzhou, Beijing, and Silicon Valley. It has over 300 workers thus far, 80% of whom work in R&D.