Embodied Intelligence, Pet Medicine, Brain Science, Gene Therapy... 6 Companies Announce New Funding Rounds | FreeS Family Funding News Vol.23
Looking forward to working alongside more outstanding founders.
"FreeS Family Funding News" is an occasional series covering funding announcements from FreeS Fund portfolio companies. Beyond our new investments, we also track follow-on rounds for companies we've already backed. Together, we witness every step of innovation — from 0 to 1, from 1 to 10, and from 10 to 100.
This edition at a glance:
- Embodied Intelligence: FreeS Fund's Series A portfolio company Instime Robotics closed a nearly RMB 100 million Series B3 round; FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Dongyi Technology completed an angel+ round, bringing total funding to over RMB 100 million; Starlight AI raised tens of millions in angel and angel+ rounds, with FreeS Fund leading the angel round.
- Biotech and Healthcare: FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Meitouke closed a multi-million RMB Pre-Series A round; Anranfei completed a multi-million RMB angel round with exclusive investment from FreeS Fund; FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Boyin Bio closed a multi-million RMB angel+ round, with FreeS Fund continuing to add to its stake.
(This compilation covers publicly disclosed funding news from April to May 2025, sorted by announcement date.)
▲ Image source: Instime Robotics
FreeS Fund's Series A portfolio company Instime Robotics completed a nearly RMB 100 million Series B3 round, led by Shenqi Capital with follow-on investments from Yuanhe Capital and Huagai Capital.
/ From the Investors /
Instime focuses on the R&D and mass production of micro servo actuators and dexterous hands, making it a significant player in the robotics industry. We are privileged to have witnessed the critical milestones in Instime's journey.
From a supply chain perspective, micro servo actuators serve as upstream core components for robotics, with their application scenarios continually expanding and upgrading. Initially, these products were mainly used in traditional 3C manufacturing, research, and education. But as technology advanced and market demands shifted, micro servo actuators have gradually penetrated industries such as healthcare, medical aesthetics, new energy, and semiconductors — and are now being deployed in humanoid robotics. This reflects the trend of motion control components evolving toward greater miniaturization and higher precision, opening up substantial new commercial opportunities.
In the specialized field of dexterous hands, Instime has grown into one of the industry's leading companies. As the humanoid robotics sector rapidly develops, dexterous hands — as core components enabling complex manipulation and interaction — will have vast room for growth and application.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the Instime team's sustained dedication and focus. Since its founding, the team has maintained a passion for robotics, adhering to a pragmatic and rigorous work ethic while relentlessly pursuing excellence in technology R&D and product refinement. We look forward to Instime playing an even more important role in the robotics supply chain and becoming a driving force for the industry's development.
/ Company Profile /
Founded in 2016, Instime Robotics is a specialized and innovative enterprise focused on the R&D and mass production of micro servo actuators and dexterous hands. The company is dedicated to providing smaller, more precise, and more flexible motion control components for industrial manufacturing and the robotics industry. It is currently the manufacturer of China's first commercially mass-produced dexterous hand and one of the few domestic vendors capable of large-scale delivery. Its dexterous hand products have sold over 1,000 units cumulatively, providing stable and reliable support to most globally renowned robotics OEMs.
Instime's client base spans global leaders in hot sectors including new energy and humanoid robotics.
Micro servo actuators, as the core motion execution components of dexterous hands, have demonstrated strong performance not only in robotics but also in new energy coating machines, medical surgical instruments, 3C electronics, and semiconductor precision equipment. In 2024, Instime's annual revenue doubled compared to 2023, with overseas business growing 20-fold — demonstrating robust market expansion capabilities. (Read more: Robot Open Community — Robotics Components and Dexterous Hand Maker "Instime Robotics" Completes Nearly RMB 100 Million Series B3 Round)
▲ Image source: Meitouke Bio
FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Meitouke completed a multi-million RMB Pre-Series A round, led by Qinzhi Capital.
/ From the Investors /
As the population of aging pets surges and younger pet owners' ability and willingness to pay for pet care grows, the pet pharmaceutical market is entering a period of rapid growth. Extending pets' healthy lifespan has become a particular focus. Stem cell technology holds potential for treating diseases, improving quality of life, and combating aging — familiar in human medicine, yet still a cutting-edge innovative therapy in veterinary medicine.
Meitouke is a pet stem cell drug development company that FreeS Fund invested in at the angel round. Over its three years of operation, the company has made clear progress in cell culture technology, cryopreservation and transport processes, and clinical research partnerships. It has accumulated a substantial number of validated cases for common diseases affecting the skin, nervous system, and musculoskeletal system in aging cats, dogs, and horses. It has achieved the breakthrough of bringing stem cell technology from R&D to veterinary clinical application.
We congratulate Meitouke on completing this new funding round and look forward to the company continuing to advance clinical validation of stem cell drugs in the pet sector, expanding the possibilities in pet anti-aging.
/ Company Profile /
Founded in late 2021, Meitouke Bio focuses on developing mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) drugs for age-related diseases in cats, dogs, and horses, such as osteoarthritis, cartilage or ligament injuries, and muscle atrophy.
By optimizing culture media and conditions, Meitouke is committed to cultivating MSCs with efficient expansion capabilities. To ensure cells maintain high viability after cryopreservation and thawing, the company has developed proprietary cryopreservation solutions and storage systems specifically for pet stem cells. Through process optimization at every R&D stage, Meitouke aims to achieve higher cell yields, stronger activity, and lower cell dosages for treatment — thereby reducing costs. (Read more: 36Kr — Optimizing Pet Stem Cell Drug Development Process, "Meitouke" Secures Multi-Million RMB Pre-Series A Round)
▲ Anranfei's related research has been published in Nature Neuroscience. Image source: VB Network
Anranfei announced the completion of a multi-million RMB angel round, with exclusive investment from FreeS Fund.
/ From the Investors /
In biotech, central nervous system (CNS) diseases represent a segment with enormous unmet clinical needs. However, due to the complex pathological mechanisms of brain disorders and limitations in research methods and samples, drug development for neuropsychiatric diseases remains severely challenging.
Anranfei is built on novel neurobiological mechanisms and is dedicated to developing innovative drugs for CNS diseases. The company focuses on modulating local brain networks — an approach distinct from previous single-neurotransmitter replenishment or direct receptor intervention, with the potential to achieve more physiologically relevant therapeutic effects that can be extended and validated across multiple neuron types and species.
Currently, therapies that increase dopamine concentration in the brain for Parkinson's disease treatment have been clinically validated. Anranfei's lead pipeline will also focus on Parkinson's, providing critical clinical validation for this new biological mechanism and bringing better drug options to patients.
/ Company Profile /
Anranfei is committed to developing first-in-class and best-in-class innovative drugs that regulate neurotransmitter secretion, aiming to address a range of unmet clinical needs globally, drive therapeutic transformation in neuroscience, and benefit patients worldwide.
The company's first pipeline targets a first-in-class innovative drug for Parkinson's disease. Its novel target achieves direct regulation of dopaminergic neuron secretion for the first time, with a completely new mechanism that overturns conventional understanding of dopamine secretion. Once approved, it could be used as a standalone therapy for Parkinson's (without dependence on levodopa).
Anranfei has completed multiple international patent applications for its lead compounds, with optimization work nearing completion. It expects to identify a preclinical candidate compound (PCC) in 2025. (Read more: VB Network — Anranfei Completes Multi-Million Angel Round, Targeting First-in-Class Parkinson's Drug with Neurotransmitter Endogenous Modulation Technology)
▲ Image source: Dongyi Technology
FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Dongyi Technology announced the completion of an angel+ round, bringing total funding to over RMB 100 million. The round was led by Tsingzhi Cap, with follow-on investment from Puchao Capital. Existing shareholders FreeS Fund and Z Fund (Zhipu AI Ecosystem Fund) made significant oversubscribed follow-on investments, while Linge Venture Capital, Szyat, Yinxingu Capital, and Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund continued to add to their stakes.
/ From the Investors /
Dongyi Technology is a rare AI-native robotics company. It not only applies AI comprehensively across perception, planning, and control algorithms, but also embraces an AI-oriented design philosophy in robot hardware design and optimization — truly a robotics company built for the future.
Drawing on the team's extensive industry experience and cutting-edge technical architecture, we believe the company's humanoid high-dynamic robot product line can break through the bottlenecks of general-purpose locomotion, providing a solid and reliable "body" for the silicon-based intelligent world.
/ Company Profile /
Established in September 2024, Dongyi Technology operates under the vision of "Robot for AI," dedicated to building next-generation general-purpose embodied intelligent agents. Through full-stack self-developed hardware and end-to-end trained motion control systems integrated with multimodal large models, it aims to deliver next-generation AI productivity for manufacturing, specialized operations, and lifestyle services.
Dongyi's core team is one of the few in China capable of scaling reinforcement learning algorithms for full-size humanoid robot motion control. Its R&D talent comes from leading institutions including Tsinghua University, Beihang University, Southern University of Science and Technology, UCLA, and UCSD, bringing industry-leading AI algorithm capabilities alongside rich engineering and mass production experience. R&D personnel account for over 85% of the team.
The company's product matrix includes various sizes of bipedal humanoid robots, integrated cycloidal joint modules, and other robot hardware form factors, with continuous expansion of product boundaries planned. (Read more: Dongyi Technology — Robot for AI, Dongyi Technology Completes Over RMB 100 Million Angel Round)
▲ Image source: Z Potentials
FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Starlight AI announced the completion of consecutive tens of millions RMB angel and angel+ rounds. The angel round was led by FreeS Fund with follow-on from Jiacheng Capital; the angel+ round was led by Yunshi Capital with follow-on from Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund.
/ From the Investors /
As a key component for embodied robots performing manipulation tasks, dexterous hands face the challenge of integrating drive units, transmission structures, and multiple sensor types within the same space as a human hand, while simultaneously meeting stringent requirements for tip precision, load capacity, degrees of freedom, and reliability. This demands that R&D teams fundamentally rethink and redesign the underlying architecture from the ground up.
The Starlight AI team has achieved comprehensive hardware performance improvements in dexterous hands through底层技术创新. Starlight AI is poised to advance the productization of high-DOF dexterous hands and accelerate the commercial integration of embodied robots. We are optimistic about the team's ability to continuously iterate on dexterous hands and embodied manipulation going forward.
/ Company Profile /
Founded in 2024, Starlight AI focuses on general-purpose manipulation for embodied intelligence. Team members hail from renowned institutions including Tsinghua University, The University of Hong Kong, and Harbin Institute of Technology. Founder Dehao Wei graduated from Tsinghua University and previously served as a robotic learning algorithm engineer at ByteDance's AI Lab. Chief Scientist is Professor Ping Luo of The University of Hong Kong.
Addressing limitations in existing dexterous hand products, Starlight AI has introduced its new Pantheon Hand product through years of technical accumulation and key breakthroughs. The product achieves simultaneous breakthroughs in ultra-high degrees of freedom, ultra-lightweight design, and ultra-low mass production cost — with comprehensive performance improvements of 300% over existing products. Additionally, its proprietary exoskeleton dual-modal data collection system enables lossless motion data transfer through ergonomic teaching devices, establishing the industry's first fully closed-loop manipulation training system.
Starlight AI is also building Acosmos, an open-source dexterous hand developer community accessible to everyone. Through self-developed hundred-RMB-grade, 10mm-diameter integrated drive-control micro joint modules, it makes building dexterous hands as simple as assembling Lego bricks. (Read more: Z Potentials — Embodied Intelligence "Starlight AI" Secures Tens of Millions in Angel+ Round, Accelerating Scenario Deployment)
▲ Image source: Boyin Bio
FreeS Fund's angel-round portfolio company Boyin Bio completed a multi-million RMB angel+ round. The round was led by Zhangjiang Life and Health Industry Incubation Angel Fund, with existing shareholder FreeS Fund and the founder personally continuing to add to their stakes.
/ From the Investors /
The indications Boyin Bio focuses on — sarcopenia, hemophilia A, and bladder cancer — have clear clinical needs and align well with gene therapy's ideal model of "one treatment, long-term benefit." As population aging accelerates and the burden of chronic disease management grows heavier, the emergence of such breakthrough therapies promises to improve patients' quality of life and bring far-reaching impact to healthcare systems.
We are optimistic about Boyin Bio's dual advantages in global vision and local translation experience. We look forward to the company accelerating preclinical research and early clinical trials in the coming years, and achieving effective translation of technical成果 into therapeutic value as soon as possible.
/ Company Profile /
Founded in 2020, Boyin Bio was established by Yale University-educated PhD returnees with global vision and local entrepreneurship experience, in partnership with senior scientists experienced in domestic gene therapy translation research. The company focuses on non-viral vector gene therapy development, dedicated to solving three major pain points in the field: vector capacity limitations, inability to redose, and high production costs — joining the global Gene Therapy 2.0 revolution.
The company has established three technology platforms: end-free DNA preparation, LNP in vivo cell-type-targeted delivery, and in vivo electroporation/mechanical transfection delivery, with comprehensive intellectual property protection domestically and internationally.
Boyin focuses on delivery to the liver, eye, muscle, bladder, and blood cells, aiming to provide breakthrough therapies for patients with genetic diseases and major chronic diseases. Its pipeline includes sarcopenia, bladder cancer, and hemophilia A. (Read more: Hello Zhangjiang — Boyin Bio Completes Multi-Million Angel+ Round, Accelerating Non-Viral Vector Gene Therapy Product Development)
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