Qiming Venture Partners' Alex Zhou: Robotics and Embodied AI Will Rise Over the Next Decade, with Quality Startup Opportunities Emerging Across the Supply Chain

According to IPO Zaozhidao, Mech-Mind (Xiong'an) Robotics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Mech-Mind") officially listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 1, 2026, under the stock code "09615", becoming the "first embodied intelligence eyes-brain-hands stock."

Since its founding, Mech-Mind has received investments from multiple well-known institutions. Among them, Qiming Venture Partners exclusively led Mech-Mind's Series A+ round in early 2019 and has accompanied the company's growth ever since. Prior to the IPO, Qiming Venture Partners held a 7.38% stake in Mech-Mind, making it one of the company's leading cornerstone independent investors under Chapter 18C.

Alex Zhou, Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners, stated: "Qiming Venture Partners' investment in Mech-Mind in 2019 stemmed from our conviction in the broad prospects of intelligent robotics, coupled with our assessment that AI applications in the physical world remained in the early stages of industrialization, with limited closed-loop deployment scenarios. Mech-Mind combines top-tier R&D capabilities with commercial execution strength, consistently validating its products at global leading customer sites, with outstanding performance in both domestic and overseas markets. We look forward to Mech-Mind becoming a core supplier of physical AI infrastructure, leveraging its mature commercial closed-loop to continuously drive long-term innovation in general embodied intelligence."

Alex Zhou, Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners

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Investing at the Early Stage of Industrial Application

Tianlan Shao Combines Technical Insight with Pragmatic Business Discipline

Zhou recalled that Qiming Venture Partners' decision to invest in Mech-Mind in 2019 was based on three key assessments:

First, it was the early stage of industrialization for AI applications in the physical world — eight or nine years ago, traditional intelligent robots had already achieved scaled deployment in fixed-scenario repetitive tasks, but truly AI-based robot brains capable of autonomous perception and real-time decision-making were still in their infancy. From an intelligence perspective, the "brain" of robots had not yet formed a closed loop with robotic motion; a large number of devices were essentially still "blindly operating," which represented the critical bottleneck in intelligent evolution — and not a strength of established Japanese and European robotics and technology companies.

Second, AI machine vision technology could create a multiplicatively larger incremental market — Mech-Mind's innovation went beyond using deep learning to give robots environmental perception capabilities; more importantly, it built robot brains through full-stack AI software and hardware, creating a closed loop connecting environmental perception, intelligent decision-making, and robotic arm execution, enabling autonomous completion of numerous non-repetitive complex manufacturing and logistics tasks that traditional solutions could not achieve, thereby creating demand that was orders of magnitude larger.

Third, a founding team with both technical vision and a commitment to product-led market development — at the time, Mech-Mind's core team had little industry experience, but possessed technical vision and determination to serve the industrial automation downstream market, flexibly seeking high-value scenarios while adhering to a business philosophy of only building standard software and hardware system suites. "This has not changed during the one-year observation period before Qiming Venture Partners' investment, nor in the nearly seven years since — this is precisely the trait of exceptional entrepreneurs that Qiming Venture Partners most admires."

Zhou further noted that Tianlan Shao (Chairman, Executive Director, and CEO of Mech-Mind) possesses exceptional technical insight. "He has deep understanding and awareness of the boundaries of emerging technologies, and is particularly adept at combining diverse mature and cutting-edge technologies with practical application requirements, delivering them in productized form. This is clearly traceable in the company's first-generation product end-to-end workflow design, software interaction design, and more."

Equally rare is Shao's adherence to a pragmatic business discipline, or business philosophy. "He spent considerable time studying the product portfolio designs of industry benchmark companies, insisting that the company build a multi-tier ecosystem of direct and partner delivery around its standard product line even during the years of greatest revenue pressure. He has long focused on the company's multi-dimensional operational quality and financial performance, never relying on blindly burning capital to seize market share. All of this is especially rare in China's frenetic startup market, and has contributed to Mech-Mind's impressive financial performance at its IPO."

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Two Dimensions for Assessing Mech-Mind's Post-IPO Upside

Continuously Deepening Product Portfolio Opens New Application Boundaries

Regarding expectations for Mech-Mind after its listing, Zhou believes the post-IPO opportunity can be simply viewed from two dimensions.

First, accelerated penetration of Mech-Mind's foundational product lines in intelligent robot guidance, intelligent inspection, and measurement. Both the Chinese and overseas markets still have numerous manufacturing and logistics scenarios that have not completed intelligent transformation, as well as many complex unstructured operations awaiting intelligent robot solutions. Taking overseas markets as an example, Mech-Mind initiated globalization as early as 2019, and has now established over 10 business centers across Europe, America, Japan, and Korea, covering nearly 50 countries and regions, with overseas revenue exceeding half of total revenue — fully demonstrating that the product capabilities honed in China's brutally competitive domestic market offer even greater advantages when applied overseas. "In the coming years, as embodied intelligence expands from core manufacturing and logistics scenarios to broader deployment, Mech-Mind as the industry leader will enjoy the greatest headwinds."

Second, supported by its fully self-developed multimodal large model mech-GPT, Mech-Mind has brought to market foundational component products for the new generation of embodied intelligence, including high-precision 3D cameras and the biomimetic five-finger dexterous hand Mich-Hand designed specifically for dexterous manipulation. This will substantially deepen Mech-Mind's product portfolio thickness, enabling faster iteration of new products and collaborative solution promotion with core product lines even by leveraging existing high-quality customer bases alone, opening entirely new application boundaries.

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Qiming Venture Partners Has Built Comprehensive Coverage in Robotics and Embodied Intelligence

Quality Entrepreneurial Opportunities Will Continue to Emerge Across the Industry Chain

Of course, starting from the second half of this year, the secondary market may welcome a new wave of "embodied intelligence IPOs." On this, Zhou emphasized that while many companies are rushing toward IPOs to some extent to capture the scarcity premium of being early listed players in the sector, scarcity-driven valuation premiums are merely additive, not core support for enterprise value. Whether companies can successfully list, and how their secondary market performance will diverge after listing, depends critically on several factors:

First, scaled commercial deployment capability. An IPO is not the finish line, but rather the "Everest Base Camp" for enterprise development. 2027 will be a critical validation window for robotics and embodied intelligence companies — they cannot remain at the demo prototype or showcase project stage, but must demonstrate the ability to generate scaled orders and solid revenue.

Second, whether technical approaches can converge and whether physical AI can advance to the next level. Currently, the sector has numerous companies with highly homogenized team backgrounds, technical approaches, and target scenarios. Many deployment projects still use scenario-specific models without forming reusable, massively scalable systems. Only when embodied intelligence models achieve further breakthroughs in scenario generalization, dexterous manipulation, environmental interaction, and rapid learning can companies break free from scattered demo projects and unlock larger commercial space.

Third, cost, gross margin, and supply chain management capabilities stemming from the hardware nature of robotics. Robotics has heavy hardware characteristics; companies need to demonstrate clear cost reduction pathways, controllable delivery capabilities, and healthy gross margin levels — hardware, algorithms, and engineering delivery are all indispensable.

Notably, beyond Mech-Mind, Qiming Venture Partners has completed comprehensive coverage in robotics and embodied intelligence, spanning physical AI models, robot bodies, core components, data platforms, edge chips, and other domains.

Zhou noted that in the robotics and embodied intelligence sector, Qiming Venture Partners continues to closely track industry evolution and seize investment opportunities accordingly, without simply chasing market hotspots.

"We assess that within the next two years, the data bottleneck currently facing physical AI is likely to be broken through, with significant model capability improvements driving technology deployment across more scenarios in industry, logistics, and commercial services. As high-level applications continue to expand, on one hand, full-linkage robotics hardware will see a new round of iteration demand; on the other hand, the industry will impose higher standards for robotics safety systems. In the long term, we expect that within approximately ten years, robots with capabilities surpassing humans may emerge. Therefore, over the next decade, the entire industry will maintain long-term upward development, with quality entrepreneurial opportunities continuing to emerge across all segments of the industry chain," Zhou stated.

Source | IPO Zaozhidao

Author | Stone Jin

Previous Coverage

Qiming Stars | Tianlan Shao of Mech-Mind: A Pragmatic Idealist Qiming Weekly | Top 10 News from Qiming Venture Partners Portfolio Companies Vol.21, 2026.6.23 Qiming Honors | 5 Qiming Venture Partners Investors Named to 2025 Forbes China Midas List

Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners currently manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total assets under management reaching $9.5 billion. Since its inception, the firm has focused on investing in outstanding early and growth-stage companies in Technology and Healthcare.

To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 580 high-growth innovative companies, of which more than 210 have listed on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through M&A and other means. Over 80 portfolio companies have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns.

Many Qiming Venture Partners portfolio companies have grown into the most influential companies in their respective fields, including Xiaomi (01810.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Bilibili (NASDAQ:BILI, 09626.HK), Zhihu (NYSE:ZH, 02390.HK), Roborock (688169.SH), Hesai Technology (NASDAQ:HSAI, 02525.HK), UBTECH (09880.HK), WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD, 00800.HK), HyperStrong (688411.SH), Insta360 (688775.SH), Unisound (09678.HK), Biren Technology (06082.HK), Zhipu (02513.HK), Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), Tigermed (300347.SZ, 03347.HK), Zai Lab (NASDAQ:ZLAB, 09688.HK), CanSino Biologics (688185.SH, 06185.HK), Schrödinger (NASDAQ:SDGR), MicroPort EP MedTech (688617.SH), Sanyou Medical (688085.SH), Amoy Diagnostics (300685.SZ), SinoCellTech (688520.SH), Insilico Medicine (03696.HK), Arbutus Biopharma, Yuanxin Technology, MediLink Therapeutics, LaNova Medicines, StepFun, and others.