“Dexterous manipulation is a core capability rather than a supplementary function in bringing embodied intelligence into industrial applications.”

Source: ChinaVenture

DexRobot, an embodied intelligence company, has announced the completion of a Series A financing round worth hundreds of millions of RMB. The new funding will support the company’s continued development across several key areas, including full-stack dexterous manipulation technology R&D, core dexterous hand product iteration, large-scale deployment across multiple industries, and the development of an embodied intelligence ecosystem. The Series A follows the company’s angel financing round earlier in 2026, with continued backing from strategic and financial investors, reflecting strong confidence in the strength of its full-stack dexterous manipulation technologies and its ability to drive industrial applications.

A key highlight of this financing round is the participation of Shanghai Electric, a leading industrial player, alongside the establishment of a joint venture between the two companies. This marks DexRobot’s transition from a technology-focused company toward large-scale industrial delivery. As embodied intelligence moves from laboratory demonstrations to validation in real-world operating environments, robots’ ability to achieve stability, precision, and consistency in object interaction is becoming a key threshold for industrial applications, with dexterous manipulation emerging as one of the core capabilities shaping the potential of embodied intelligence in industrial development.

DexRobot has long been dedicated to developing a full-stack dexterous manipulation technology system, building its proprietary dexterous manipulation system around five key dimensions: hardware, perception, data, models, and applications. On the hardware side, the company continues to advance multiple actuation architectures, full-palm tactile sensing, multi-contact sensing, and arm-hand coordination. Its perception capabilities integrate multimodal information including tactile, thermal, proprioceptive, and stretch sensing. At the data and model layer, the company has established a data system built around actual tasks and is advancing integrated capabilities spanning pretraining, data collection, training, and deployment. In terms of applications, the company has developed productized capabilities for single, well-defined tasks and continuous, well-defined tasks, and continues to advance toward more complex uncertain tasks and multi-task generalization.

“While the ability to see and move provides the foundation for robots, the ability to achieve grasp stability, manipulation precision, and reliable operation over extended periods is what delivers the core value of embodied intelligence in serving industry. Dexterous manipulation is a foundational capability, rather than a supplementary function, for bringing embodied intelligence into industrial applications,” said Dr. Xu Chunshan, Founder and Chairman of DexRobot.

Photo: Dr. Xu Chunshan, Founder and Chairman of DexRobot

Building on its full-stack dexterous manipulation technologies, DexRobot has adopted a “1+3+N” development model, centered on dexterous manipulation as its core technological foundation, with a focus on three key application areas: education, power, and industry, while expanding into fields including energy operations and maintenance, life sciences, and public services.

In the education sector, DexRobot is developing embodied intelligence training and research platforms for universities, research institutions, and industry colleges, supporting the development of specialized talent in robotics while establishing a closed loop spanning teaching, data, and model iteration.

In the power sector, DexRobot is targeting applications including high-risk inspection, precision maintenance, and live-line operations, and has jointly established the Joint Laboratory for Embodied Intelligence Inspection and Operation Robots with Huazhong University of Science and Technology. An initial outcome of the collaboration, the inspection and operation robot solution, has completed POC validation in power industry customer environments and is now entering further field testing across a broader range of tasks.

In the industrial sector, the company is addressing needs in flexible manufacturing, precision assembly, and complex grasping, accelerating the deployment of dexterous manipulation technologies on industrial production lines. Recently, DexRobot and Shanghai Mechanical & Electrical, a subsidiary of Shanghai Electric, jointly established two joint ventures with a combined registered capital of more than RMB 100 million. One of the joint ventures, Lingji Yidong, focuses on the R&D, mass production, and supply chain support of core components for embodied intelligence, while the other, Lingji Zhilian, specializes in application-oriented R&D for industrial scenarios, solution integration, project delivery, and market development, connecting the entire value chain from component mass production to industry deployment.

Photo: Selected Products from DexRobot’s Product Portfolio

From Research Incubation to Industrialization 

DexRobot was incubated by SAIRI (Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute). Its core team brings together leading scientists and experienced industry experts from around the world across robotics, advanced algorithmic models, and precision motion control. Leveraging Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s strengths in research innovation and talent development, the company continues to advance breakthroughs in core embodied intelligence and dexterous manipulation technologies and their industrial applications. DexRobot has already brought its DexHand021 series of three-finger and five-finger dexterous hands, as well as the DexCap data acquisition system, into mass production, and is deeply involved in the development of the National Pilot Base for Embodied Intelligence Applications.

As industry partnerships continue to advance, DexRobot’s products and solutions have been featured in a range of high-profile industry research and demonstration settings and have been deployed in the “Smart Badge” interactive system for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, serving as a representative example of China’s dexterous manipulation technologies expanding into international application settings.

Looking Ahead

Following the completion of this financing round, DexRobot will leverage the industrial platform jointly established with Shanghai Electric to further strengthen its full-stack dexterous manipulation technologies and accelerate the mass production and delivery of industrial embodied intelligence products. Building on education, power, and industry as key reference cases, the company will continue to accumulate data from actual operating environments and optimize robot manipulation models to develop replicable and scalable embodied intelligence solutions, thereby advancing the transition of robots from laboratory settings to real production and service environments across a wide range of industries.