From Two Rounds in Six Months to a $400M Series D: 10 Companies Announce New Funding | FreeS Family Funding News Vol.24
Looking forward to working alongside more outstanding founders.
The "FreeS Family Funding News" column publishes funding updates from FreeS Fund portfolio companies on a rolling basis. Coverage includes both new investments and follow-on rounds for companies already in our portfolio. Together, we witness each step of an innovative company's journey — from 0 to 1, from 1 to 10, and from 10 to 100.
This issue at a glance:
- AI+: FreeS angel-round portfolio company METiS Pharmaceuticals completed a 400 million yuan Series D; Mengyou Intelligence's Ropet closed a tens-of-millions yuan Series A1 with follow-on from FreeS Fund; FreeS angel-round portfolio company Interstellar Light-Year completed a Pre-A round; Baiyao Technology closed a tens-of-millions yuan angel round led by FreeS Fund; FreeS Pre-A portfolio company Youha Technology completed a Series A;
- Semiconductors + Optics: FreeS angel-round portfolio company Duogan Technology secured a tens-of-millions yuan strategic round; FreeS Pre-A portfolio company LightStandard raised two rounds within six months; FreeS Series A portfolio company Alpha Optoelectronics completed two B+ rounds within a year; FreeS Series A portfolio company Xinjing Microelectronics closed a hundreds-of-millions yuan Series C+;
- Consumer + Healthcare: FreeS Series A portfolio company Methuselah secured a B+ round exceeding 100 million yuan.
(This roundup covers publicly disclosed funding news from June to October 2025, sorted by announcement date.)
Image source: Duogan Technology
FreeS angel-round portfolio company Duogan Technology announced the completion of a tens-of-millions yuan strategic round co-invested by Xinwei Capital and Anhui State Holdings.
/ From the Investors /
From the earliest days of his startup, Dr. Teng Wang, founder of Duogan Technology, chose to empower consumer electronics with optoelectronic chips — specifically focusing on smartphones and smartwatches, providing them with spectral sensing chips, infrared laser health parameter sensors, and other optoelectronic chips and modules.
Competition in the smartphone and smartwatch markets is extraordinarily fierce, imposing exceptionally demanding requirements on the chip industry. Every aspect of chip (and module) design — form factor, size, performance, power consumption, cost, mass production quality control, and supply capacity — faces extremely high standards. These two markets are therefore among the most difficult to enter and the hardest to gain recognition in.
As Duogan Technology's angel investor, FreeS Fund witnessed the founding team's years of effort to develop multiple optoelectronic products, engage in extensive and repeated communication and collaboration with numerous mainstream domestic smartphone and smartwatch brands, and ultimately earn recognition from leading manufacturers. Today, Duogan Technology has made the leap from product prototype to large-scale mass production, with steadily growing shipment volumes in smartphones, smartwatches, and other electronic products.
We have every reason to believe that under Dr. Wang's leadership, Duogan Technology will achieve increasingly prominent market performance in consumer electronics, becoming a leading enterprise in optoelectronic chips and modules.
/ Company Profile /
With the mission and vision of "making daily life better through sensors," Duogan Technology focuses on the design, R&D, and application of ultra-miniaturized optoelectronic sensor chips and systems. The company is a optoelectronic sensor chip design and solutions provider with full-chain core capabilities spanning chip design, optical design, software, and algorithm development. Its founding and core team comes from world-leading R&D institutions and companies including IMEC, Intel, FPC, Ericsson, Sony, and STATSChipPac.
Duogan Technology's multi-product-line layout employs proprietary technical approaches that place it at the forefront of the industry globally. Its products have been shipped in volume to numerous leading domestic and international consumer electronics brands, smart terminal manufacturers, ODMs, and research institutions, serving over 100 customer device programs to date. The company also maintains deep partnerships with leading domestic semiconductor and optical manufacturing companies, achieving a fully domestic supply chain. It holds a comprehensive independent intellectual property portfolio of nearly 100 patents, software copyrights, and integrated circuit layout rights. (Full report: Duogan Technology completes strategic funding round)
Image source: LightStandard
FreeS Pre-A portfolio company LightStandard completed a funding round in December 2024 led by Jinqiu Fund, with existing shareholders Mushi Capital, Xiaomiao Langcheng, and Zhongying Venture Capital all participating above their pro-rata rights. Just six months later, in June 2025, LightStandard announced another new round led by Dunhong Capital, with follow-on from state-backed funds including Pudong Technology Angel Fund of Funds, Suzhou Future Angel Industrial Fund, and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Investment, while Zhongying Venture Capital increased its stake again.
/ From the Investors /
FreeS Fund has long been bullish on and continuously investing in the field of photonics. As a carrier with both information and energy transmission capabilities, light has broad application prospects in processing, imaging, and computing.
Regarding computing specifically, as various applications' demand for computing power continues to grow, the performance of electronic chips is gradually approaching physical limits. Optical computing has the potential to break through the limitations of traditional computing chips in high-speed computing, particularly in artificial intelligence, becoming a foundational technology for next-generation computing.
With its R&D and application of novel optical modulation methods, LightStandard demonstrates tremendous potential in optical computing, communications, and other fields. Under the major trend of "optics replacing copper," we expect and believe that LightStandard will become a leading enterprise in all-optical information systems.
/ Company Profile /
Founded in 2022, LightStandard operates in optical computing chips, where there are currently two mainstream technical approaches. LightStandard is the world's first commercial company to achieve heterogeneous integration of silicon photonics with phase-change materials (PCM) for optical chip memory-computing integration.
According to the company, this technical path offers advantages in unit size and system energy consumption, making it more suitable for large-scale AI computing scenarios. LightStandard's approach enables integration of 128×128, 256×256, and even larger matrices onto a single die — more than 10× higher integration density than other technical solutions, allowing optical computing to better deploy in large model applications. (Full report: Optical computing system solution provider "LightStandard" completes two rounds within six months, backed by state capital from two regions)
Image source: METiS Pharmaceuticals
FreeS angel-round portfolio company METiS Pharmaceuticals completed its Series D round. The round raised a total of 400 million yuan, co-led by Beijing Medical and Health Industry Investment Fund and Daxing District Industrial Investment Fund.
/ From the Investors /
Congratulations to METiS Pharmaceuticals on completing its 400 million yuan Series D and establishing operations in Beijing's Daxing District. Our sincere thanks to leaders at all levels in Beijing, the Beijing Medical and Health Industry Investment Fund, and the Daxing District Industrial Investment Fund for their strong support.
FreeS Fund fully recognizes METiS Pharmaceuticals' remarkable achievements over the past year, including but not limited to:
First, launching NanoForge, the world's first AI-powered nano-delivery platform: Based on quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics simulation, combined with a proprietary patented high-throughput wet lab and screening platform, the platform integrates a novel synthetic lipid language model and generative algorithms to achieve a closed-loop workflow from molecular generation to final dosage form determination.
Second, advancing MTS-004, an AI-enabled formulation new drug, to Phase III clinical trials: The small-molecule formulation MTS-004, developed through METiS's self-built platform, is the first AI-enabled new drug in China to complete Phase III clinical trials. It is also currently one of the few PBA (pseudobulbar affect) treatment drugs in China to reach Phase III clinical trials, with the potential to fill a gap in this therapeutic area.
Third, a breakthrough for the mRNA-TCE therapy MTS105: This product is expected to become one of the world's first mRNA-encoded TCE drugs for solid tumor treatment, demonstrating liver-enrichment characteristics and potent tumor-killing activity in homologous models.
Fourth, steady progress across more than ten innovative pipelines: Including in vivo CAR-T, senescent cell reprogramming, weight loss and metabolism, and other directions — all advancing on schedule.
This funding round will support several strategic priorities for METiS Pharmaceuticals, including platform automation upgrades, advancement of proprietary product pipelines, deepening international strategic partnerships, and recruitment of top-tier talent.
Once again, congratulations to the company on completing this important funding round. We look forward to METiS Pharmaceuticals listing on international capital markets soon, leveraging a global perspective and capital markets to bring more new and better drugs to patients.
/ Company Profile /
METiS Pharmaceuticals is an AI-driven biotechnology company focused on nanomaterial innovation, dedicated to using targeted drug delivery and discovery technologies to help living organisms overcome disease and aging, restoring health and vitality.
The company has already achieved precise targeted delivery of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) to key tissues and cells including the liver, lungs, muscles, and immune cells, making breakthrough progress on the challenge of multi-organ, multi-tissue targeted delivery. This creates drug development opportunities for tumors, metabolic system diseases, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and also offers possibilities for combating aging at the organ level. (For more details: METiS Pharmaceuticals Completes 400 Million Yuan Series D Funding! Helping Build Beijing Biomedical Industry's "New Engine")
Image source: Methuselah
FreeS Fund's Series A portfolio company Methuselah has completed a Series B+ funding round exceeding 100 million yuan. This round was co-led by industrial investors Bailian Commercial Investment and Bailian Zhigao, with existing shareholders HLC and Hongsheng Capital continuing to add to their investments.
/ Investor Commentary /
Congratulations to Methuselah on completing this new funding round, and on the approval of its Qingliusu® special medical purpose liquid formula food for market launch. As Methuselah's first institutional investor, we have accompanied and witnessed the company's substantial development in the fields of special medical foods and low-GI foods. The company has now established a research and production system for special medical foods, while its functional food business maintains steady growth.
We are optimistic about Methuselah's solid progress in special disease product applications and approvals, and look forward to continued breakthroughs in its functional foods segment as public awareness of nutrition and health improves. FreeS Fund will continue to support Methuselah's exploration in medical nutrition, helping it grow into a leading medical nutrition brand with top-tier influence.
/ Company Profile /
Methuselah is an innovative enterprise focused on medical nutrition, with over a decade of deep industry experience. It has established a comprehensive product matrix covering three major systems: special medical purpose formula foods, energy-controlled weight management nutrition foods, and DGI foods.
Currently, the company has developed over 100 medical nutrition SKUs, holds 6 special medical food approvals and FDA registration qualifications, meeting diverse population needs ranging from clinical treatment to chronic disease management and daily health intervention. Its special medical products are widely used in hospital clinical settings, providing precise medical-grade nutritional support for patients with different diseases; the energy-controlled series targets overweight, obese, and health management populations, enabling full-scenario meal replacement interventions; and the DGI series focuses on special groups such as diabetics and those with gestational hyperglycemia, comprehensively meeting patients' needs for low glycemic dietary management. (For more details: Exclusive: Methuselah Completes Series B+ Funding Exceeding 100 Million Yuan, Accelerating R&D and Commercial Layout of Medical Nutrition Products, WinX Capital Continues as Exclusive Financial Advisor)
Image source: Ropet
Ropet has completed a Series A1 funding round of tens of millions of RMB. This round was led by the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, with FreeS Fund participating.
/ Investor Commentary /
"Loneliness," as a survival mechanism formed during the evolution of social animals, is deeply embedded in human genes. With technological development and lifestyle changes, alleviating loneliness has become an important topic in modern society. Advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, sensors, and chips have made intelligent companion robots an important means of addressing loneliness.
The Ropet team possesses keen user insight and excellent product definition capabilities. Co-founder and CEO Jiabin He is a product-oriented entrepreneur with strong user empathy and extensive experience in taking hardware products from zero to one.
The Ropet product is a rare intelligent companion device in the market that combines playability, aesthetic taste, and technical restraint. We believe that in the future, Ropet will continue to focus on "emotional value," launching innovative products that meet user needs, maintaining leadership in this field, and creating greater commercial value.
/ Company Profile /
Founded in 2022 and incubated by Zhenzhi Venture Capital, Ropet is dedicated to building the world's leading AI emotional companion robotic pet products. Co-founders Jiabin He and Dr. Yushu Zhou have over ten years of rich experience in internet products and human-computer interaction. Core members come from top technology and consumer brands including ByteDance, Microsoft, Alibaba DAMO Academy, Xiaomi, and NIO, with capabilities in product design, AI technology, branding, and operations to take projects from zero to one and scale them.
In December 2024, Ropet's first-generation desktop robotic pet "kamomo" launched on the US crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, quickly gaining popularity among North American backers with cumulative crowdfunding of $400,000, and was selected as one of the best AI consumer hardware products of the year. In January this year, Ropet appeared at CES in Las Vegas, becoming a highlight of the exhibition with its "cute design + surprising interactions." In August, Ropet launched on Makuake, Japan's largest crowdfunding platform, surpassing 27 million yen in just one hour. (For more details: Former ByteDance Product Designer Starts "AI Pet" Business, Raises Additional Tens of Millions in Funding)
Image source: Alpha Optoelectronics
FreeS Fund's Series A portfolio company Alpha Optoelectronics, following a tens-of-millions funding round earlier this year from Anxin Fund under Jiangxi Gandong Investment, completed another new round of tens-of-millions funding in September, exclusively invested by Shenzhen Investment Holdings Donghai.
/ Investor Commentary /
FreeS Fund has long been optimistic about Alpha Optoelectronics and the optical communications industry it operates in. From first principles, light has many incomparable advantages over electricity. Particularly in communications, laser often achieves higher signal-to-noise ratios, faster rates, and longer transmission distances. From a market perspective, optical communications has expanded from long-distance trunk lines to data center internal and external interconnects, and further penetrated to board-to-board and chip-to-chip interconnections, with its application territory continuously expanding, even entering cost-sensitive consumer markets such as home appliances.
The Alpha Optoelectronics founding team combines international frontier technical vision with deep industry experience, and is among the industry's pioneers in integrated optical engines, CPO (Co-packaged optics, where switch chips and optical engines are co-packaged in the same slot to form chip and module co-packaging), and other advanced technologies. We believe the team will continue to work hard as always, leveraging the momentum of AI and optical interconnect upgrades to achieve increasingly strong market results and gain increasing industry recognition.
/ Company Profile /
Alpha Optoelectronics is led by a distinguished expert under China's national entrepreneurship talent program. It is a national high-tech enterprise, a Guangdong Province "specialized, refined, distinctive, innovative" (zhuanjingtexin) enterprise, and a first-prize winner of the Electronics Society's Science and Technology Progress Award. The company's short-distance optical interconnect chip integration solution won first place in the Shenzhen Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition. It is a global leader in consumer-grade optical engines, commanding over 60% of the consumer optical communications market. The company boasts industry-leading R&D capabilities, process manufacturing capacity, production scale, quality advantages, and customer service support.
The company has been deeply engaged in high-speed optical module technology R&D for many years. In 2017, it secured a basic research project in Shenzhen on "Key Technologies for Ultra-High-Speed Multi-Channel Optoelectronic Chip Integration Modules." In 2019, it won a national key R&D project from the Ministry of Science and Technology on "Short-Distance Optical Interconnect Technology for Data Centers." In 2025, it took the lead on a major Shenzhen science and technology special project from the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee on "Key Technology R&D for 1.6T High-Speed Optical Modules." It is among the first domestic companies to propose the CPO/LPO optoelectronic co-packaging concept. (See report: Consumer Optical Communications Leader Alpha Optoelectronics Completes Two B+ Funding Rounds in 2025)
Image source: VisionICs Microelectronics
FreeS Fund's Series A portfolio company VisionICs Microelectronics has completed a Series C+ funding round of several hundred million RMB. This round was led by China Reform Holdings Corporation Fund, with participation from Nanjing Venture Capital Group, Jushi Venture Capital, and other institutions.
/ Investor Commentary /
Congratulations to VisionICs Microelectronics on completing its Series C+ funding round, and thank you to the strategic investors for their trust and support.
As an early-stage investor, we have accompanied the company's growth for seven years, witnessing its journey from scratch to becoming a domestic leader in single-photon chips.
The company's achievements today are first and foremost due to seizing the window of opportunity for semiconductor localization in China, and choosing lidar — a major track with promising market prospects. Lidar encompasses not only automotive autonomous driving, but also micro-lidar for phones and tablets, industrial lidar, and other categories. This is a market with enormous potential; perhaps in the future, lidar could approach the market scale and application breadth of cameras.
Beyond industry opportunity, VisionICs Microelectronics' breakthroughs owe even more to the founding team's sustained deep cultivation. Dr. Li Cheng is a rare entrepreneur who combines professional academic background, acute product insight, and strong market execution capabilities, integrating and flexibly switching between multiple dimensions of expertise. The founding team has demonstrated strong comprehensive capabilities in product positioning, technology R&D, mass production quality control, and key account marketing.
Looking ahead, we believe VisionICs Microelectronics will achieve even more fruitful results, win recognition from more customers, attract increasingly talented individuals to join, and we look forward to more investment institutions witnessing VisionICs Microelectronics' entrepreneurial journey. We wish VisionICs Microelectronics a journey toward the stars and seas of technology and market.
/ Company Profile /
VisionICs Microelectronics was founded in 2018. It is a Nanjing municipal cultivated unicorn enterprise, a Jiangsu Province high-tech enterprise, a technology-based SME, and a council member of the Nanjing Integrated Circuit Industry Association. The company has R&D centers in Nanjing, Shanghai, and Silicon Valley, and a marketing center in Shenzhen. VisionICs is a leader in single-photon direct Time-of-Flight (SPAD dToF) technology and application deployment, and among the world's pioneers in researching single-photon dToF 3D imaging technology.
The company possesses chip-level optoelectronic conversion device design and single-photon detection imaging technology. Its main products are 1D and 3D ToF sensing chips based on single-photon detection. These chips are widely used in consumer electronics such as robot vacuums, drones, and smartphones, as well as in AR/VR, smart home, and autonomous driving lidar applications. The management team brings together senior technical experts with over 15 years of experience from China and abroad. (See report: [Chip Financing] VisionICs Microelectronics Completes Series C+ Funding)
Image source: Interstellar Intelligence
FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Interstellar Intelligence has completed a Pre-A funding round. This round was led by Sainuo Capital and Puhua Capital, with Kexi Venture Capital participating.
/ Investor Commentary /
Dexterous hands are the core execution unit for robots to interact with the physical world. Against the backdrop of accelerating embodied intelligence development, the pace of technological iteration in dexterous hands has become a critical bottleneck constraining high-precision dexterous manipulation. The dexterous hand field demands not only stringent hardware performance and reliability, but also requires building core competitiveness through underlying motion control algorithms adapted to complex scenarios. The team's hardware-software collaborative R&D capability is precisely the core variable determining market competitiveness.
In just one year since its founding, Interstellar Intelligence has achieved rapid iteration with an efficient R&D rhythm: it has not only built a dexterous hand product matrix covering multi-scenario needs, but also simultaneously developed an open-source community ecosystem to support industry technology deployment.
Looking ahead, we continue to be optimistic about the team's deep investment in core dexterous hand control algorithms. Interstellar Intelligence's cost-effective, easy-to-deploy dexterous manipulation solutions are expected to open new growth space for downstream scenarios in robotics, manufacturing, and services.
/ Company Profile /
Interstellar Intelligence is a dexterous hand company with full-stack self-developed hardware and operating systems. The company's released five-finger dexterous hand Pantheon 22 features an "arm-hand integrated" structure, with its lightweight, compact hand design offering greater biomimetic form and safety in human-robot interaction scenarios.
Founder and CEO Dehao Wei holds a graduate degree from Tsinghua University and an undergraduate degree from Harbin Institute of Technology. He has published multiple papers in top robotics conferences including ICRA, Nature series journals, and IEEE Trans series journals.
Dehao Wei has five years of dexterous hand design and control experience. He previously served as an algorithm engineer at Xiaomi's humanoid robot R&D center, working on dexterous hand applications in automotive industrial scenarios; and at ByteDance AI Lab, where he was responsible for high-precision data acquisition systems and robot manipulation large model development.
Interstellar Intelligence's core team members come from Tsinghua University, Harbin Institute of Technology, The University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and other institutions, with R&D and delivery experience in mechanical structures, drive control, sensors, and reinforcement learning. (See report: Releasing "Arm-Hand Integrated" New Product Benchmarked Against Tesla, Dexterous Hand Company Interstellar Intelligence Completes Pre-A Funding Round | Smart Emergence Exclusive)
Baiyao Technology has completed an angel funding round of tens of millions of RMB, led by FreeS Fund with Shunxi Capital participating.
/ Investor Commentary /
Cells are the fundamental units of life and the "main battlefield" for disease causation and drug R&D. Virtual cells, built upon bio-omics data and AI large model capabilities, construct a "digital twin" of cells, with the potential to empower common scientific research and drug development scenarios including cell development, drug sensitivity, and antibody production — thereby substantially reducing trial-and-error costs and timelines. Baiyao Technology has been deeply engaged in virtual cell research for many years, having already taken the lead in developing multiple foundation models and task-specific specialized models, and has begun collaborations with domestic and international pharmaceutical companies. We are optimistic about the company's capabilities in multi-modal data collection and modeling, and look forward to its continued progress in cell drug development, bio-manufacturing, and other directions.
/ Company Profile /
AI virtual cell platform company Baiyao Technology released its knowledge-enhanced, cross-species, hundred-million-scale single-cell pre-trained foundation model as early as 2023. It then rapidly iterated and unveiled the first graph-based single-cell pre-trained foundation model, enabling AI to understand the patterns of gene regulation and cellular state changes under internal and external environments, thereby simulating real cell behavior. This series of research achievements was published as cover articles in Cell Research and authoritative journals Advanced Science and NSR.
The single-cell foundation model developed by the Baiyao Technology team, employing a pre-training plus fine-tuning approach, demonstrates excellent generalization capabilities and broad downstream application potential, laying the technical groundwork for building an AI virtual cell platform ready for industrial deployment. (For more details: Building AI Virtual Cell Foundation Models: Baiyao Technology Raises Tens of Millions in Angel Round | Early Stage Watch)
Image source: uah Technology
FreeS Fund's Pre-A round portfolio company uah Technology has completed its Series A funding round, with exclusive investment from Emdoor Fund.
/ What the Investors Say /
The uah team brings extensive consumer electronics industry experience and strong cohesion. Despite multiple external challenges, the company has achieved impressive results in the pet smart hardware sector. Currently, uah is transitioning toward AI-enabled smart monitoring and smart wearables, entering more promising blue-ocean markets.
/ Company Profile /
uah Technology is a provider of pet smart hardware products, focused on "healthy pet parenting." Grounded in genetic and biological information combined with smart technology, and driven by design innovation, the company offers smart hardware products for pet cats and dogs and the new generation of pet owners, including smart vacuum food storage containers, intelligent cat litter box deodorizers, and smart pet water fountains. uah Technology is committed to meeting the new generation of pet owners' demand for scientific pet care through smart hardware solutions. (For more details: Funding | uah Technology Raises Series A, Emdoor Fund Exclusive Investor)
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