Medical Device/Chip Companies Close New Funding Rounds, Driving High-Quality Growth Through R&D, Commercialization, and Supply Chain | Rong Report · February

"Our guiding principle is simple: stay focused on using innovation to solve real user pain points, one after another, and create genuine value for users and society." From relentless R&D in uncharted technical territory, to pushing cutting-edge technology into people's daily lives and upgrading industrial efficiency, to sparking digital new consumption and improving health and well-being... In February, we rounded up the freshest stories of innovation and growth, and looked at how technology and pioneering forces "sharpen stone into blade, turn blunt into sharp."

Feb

Funding

Hygea Medical Closes New Funding Round, Building Integrated Platform for Tumor Interventional Therapy

On February 15, Hygea Medical announced the first closing of its Series D financing of several hundred million RMB, led by Joyful Capital. Gaorong Ventures had previously led Hygea's Series C+ round in 2021, and continued to invest in this round.

As a technology-leading tumor interventional platform company, Hygea developed the world's first combined cryoablation and thermal ablation system, the Cryo-Hit, which entered China's special review channel for innovative medical devices, breaking dependence on imports. After launch, it won high recognition from clinical experts and was included in national medical insurance coverage in 2021.

Hygea has also built a comprehensive product pipeline around tumor intervention, providing a full range of minimally invasive interventional diagnosis and treatment solutions. For percutaneous puncture intervention, it has launched the Cryo-Hit, microwave ablation, and pulsed field ablation products, combined with AI surgical planning systems and puncture surgical robots to form a diverse, intelligent tumor ablation treatment platform. For transvascular intervention, it has launched TACE microspheres, microcatheters, TIPS puncture kits, covered stents and other products, with a product portfolio leading the tumor market and providing comprehensive treatment solutions across the full cancer cycle. Read more

Adaps Photonics Closes 100-Million-RMB Series C+ Round, Deepening 3D Sensor Chips and Solutions

Recently, 3D sensor chip and solution provider Adaps Photonics completed a 100-million-RMB Series C+ round, with investors including Cornerstone Capital, Guyujiahe Capital and others. Gaorong Ventures had led Adaps Photonics' Series B1 round in 2021, and continued to invest in its Series C round.

Adaps Photonics is one of the few companies globally with mature 3D-stacked dToF chip design and process capabilities, and has maintained an internationally leading position in high-PDE, high-performance SPAD device design and process capabilities. Its PDE at 905nm wavelength reaches 25%, with over 100 domestic and international patents filed.

To date, Adaps Photonics has launched three complete product lines: silicon photomultipliers (SiPM), single-photon imaging arrays (SPADIS) and dToF modules, and limited-point dToF chips and modules, basically covering various 3D sensor application terminals and scenarios including automotive LiDAR and intelligent cockpit sensing systems, smartphones, XR headsets, robots, smart home appliances, and intelligent buildings.

The company's products have begun mass production and are gradually being adopted by downstream customers in automotive, consumer electronics, smart home, and industrial applications. Its single-point products have already achieved large-scale mass production and shipment in consumer products such as hair dryers and smartphones, and its SiPM products have completed automotive-grade mass production preparation. Read more

Feb

By the Numbers

Pinduoduo Launches "Agricultural Cloud Initiative" to Help 100 Agricultural Industry Clusters Accelerate "Digital-Physical Integration"

To further serve rural revitalization and respond to the "digital commerce for agriculture" call, Pinduoduo recently announced the launch of its "Agricultural Cloud Initiative," concentrating advantageous resources to help 100 agricultural production areas across the country get "onto the cloud" faster, building more resilient and competitive digital agricultural production zones.

Pinduoduo's "Agricultural Cloud Initiative" proposes five main measures: maintaining "zero commission" to help agricultural production areas upgrade from "production-sales matching" to "direct production-consumer connection," continuously optimizing the middle links to benefit both ends, giving farmers and consumers better deals; concentrating advantageous resources to broadly promote the use of "team buying" in flash sales and 10-billion-subsidy programs, actively connecting with major traffic support events like agricultural product festivals and new year festivals, sparking "digital new consumption" on the demand side, with a focus on helping 100 agricultural production areas build "digital new supply"; batch-connecting local quality supply chains to the cloud, under the guidance of local agriculture and e-commerce departments, holding special investment training sessions, providing small-scale targeted coaching for outstanding new farmers, nurturing 1,000 success stories; connecting agricultural production area merchants with dedicated agricultural logistics systems including warehousing and cold chain, providing full-chain agricultural product upstream infrastructure services; and through sustained concentrated platform exposure, fresh agricultural product category days, and all-channel promotion, helping build 100 regional and national brands for specialty agricultural products, promoting the standardized, branded, and digital development of specialty agriculture.

Kunming in Yunnan, Nanning in Guangxi, Xiapu in Fujian, and Weifang and Shouguang in Shandong will become Pinduoduo's first batch of key agricultural production areas for digitalization support.

Dingdong Maicai Achieves Full Profitability in Q4 2022, Continues Building Product Strength and Supply Chain Advantages

On February 13, Dingdong Maicai released its Q4 2022 financial results as of December 31, 2022. The report showed Q4 revenue of 6.20 billion RMB, up 13.1% year-over-year; Non-GAAP net profit of 116 million RMB, with first-ever single-quarter positive GAAP net profit, achieving full profitability.

For full-year 2022, Dingdong Maicai's revenue was 24.22 billion RMB, up 20.4% year-over-year. The company also achieved positive full-year operating cash flow, realizing truly high-quality growth.

The improvement in gross margin came from Dingdong Maicai's long-term commitment to supply chain building, with product strength as core competitive advantage; while the rapid optimization in fulfillment expense ratio came from improvements in labor efficiency and other factors. In 2022, Dingdong Maicai continuously built product strength advantages through direct sourcing at origin, contract farming, proprietary R&D and production, and private label brands, creating a flywheel effect.

Dingdong Maicai founder and CEO Liang Changlin said: "2023 is the first year after three years of pandemic, and consumer demands will change significantly. We are actively responding, continuously strengthening product strength, service capability, and supply chain building, serving consumers well while achieving growth and building moats."

Roborock Launches Roborock Zeo One H1 Washer-Dryer, 36-Month Self-Developed Zeo-Cycle Low-Temperature Drying Technology

On February 28, Roborock held a new product launch conference, officially releasing the Roborock Zeo One H1 washer-dryer. The product features Roborock's self-developed industry "third drying technology" — Zeo-cycle low-temperature drying — bringing users a new low-temperature intelligent drying experience that allows wear-right-after-dry while better protecting garments, solving long-standing industry pain points and fundamentally upgrading user experience.

Roborock spent 36 months self-developing Zeo-cycle™ low-temperature drying technology. Its zeolite disc module is layered with molecular sieves, greatly improving water absorption capacity to reach 288,000 square meters of adsorption area; paired with dual-cycle air flow, drying doesn't rely on excessively high temperatures, better protecting fabric fiber characteristics, producing soft, skin-friendly garments that maintain their original shape and color.

The Roborock H1 is the first washer-dryer to receive dual certification from the China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute for wool and silk drying. Additionally, the H1 uses RR wash-dry algorithms, integrating multiple NTC intelligent sensors to achieve 10-millisecond-level precise temperature control, providing 25 intelligent wash-dry modes; and self-developed a lint filtration self-cleaning system that automatically collects lint onto a filter screen then automatically flushes it.

Roborock founder and chairman Chang Jing said, "From LDS LiDAR navigation to Zeo-cycle low-temperature drying, we follow the direction of innovation and growth, sharpening stone into blade, turning blunt into sharp, continuously exploring toward our goal of 'becoming a company that consistently creates the world's best口碑 products.' Using innovation to simplify life, letting the world witness Chinese creation."

Innovusion Ranks #1 in China Passenger Vehicle LiDAR Front-Mount Supplier Market Share

Recently, intelligent vehicle industry think tank "Gaogong Intelligent Auto" released its 2022 China market share ranking for passenger vehicle LiDAR front-mount suppliers, with Innovusion topping the list at 36.2% market share.

As a leading player in the LiDAR track, Innovusion has demonstrated excellent performance in technology accumulation, product development, and mass production delivery, becoming a pioneering force in driving intelligent driving and new energy vehicle industry front-mount mass production.

In 2022, Innovusion completed construction of two highly automated and digitalized production lines, successfully achieving mass production ramp-up while effectively improving production efficiency and reducing production costs, breaking through 50,000 units of image-grade ultra-long-range LiDAR production.

At the 2023 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Innovusion unveiled its high-performance mid-short-range side-view LiDAR "Robin," which combined with the main-view LiDAR "Falcon" covers all high-frequency scenarios in highway and urban autonomous driving, accelerating the upgrade of assisted driving perception capabilities.

Flexiv Releases World's First Force-Controlled Parallel Robot: Moonlight

In early February, Flexiv held its "FLEXIVERSE 2023 New Product Launch," releasing a series of new products: the world's first adaptive parallel robot, a new generation of general force-controlled grippers, and the QiongZhi AI system — "arm," "hand," and "brain" built along the human-imitation technology innovation route.

Moonlight is the world's first force-controlled parallel robot, designed specifically for relatively simple processes with force control requirements, such as tightening assembly, flexible feeding, surface grinding and other process steps. Superior mechanical characteristics combined with powerful force control performance give Moonlight high extensibility and adaptability, enabling full-scenario coverage and application in diverse operating scenarios.

The Grav series includes the force-controlled gripper Grav and its enhanced version Grav Enhanced. Through extreme force control performance and the use of biomimetic gecko material, it greatly expands gripper versatility, adapting to as many handling objects and complex tasks as possible, providing more options for robotic engineering solutions.

Flexiv also released QiongZhi NOEMA, a general-purpose intelligent AI platform for users. QiongZhi supports solution application and deployment of adaptive robots in industry, agriculture, services, healthcare and other fields. Through the use of the latest QiongZhi cloud platform, QiongZhi edge system, and edge control box, users can easily develop AI models and manage the full lifecycle of solutions.

4B Technologies' ALS Class 1 New Drug FB-1071 Phase I Clinical Trial Initiated

On March 1, 4B Technologies held the initiation meeting for its Class 1 innovative drug FB-1071's Phase I clinical trial. FB-1071 is a potent, highly selective, brain-penetrant CSF-1R small molecule inhibitor with global first-in-class potential, which 4B Technologies intends to develop for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). This clinical trial aims to evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of single ascending doses of FB-1071, along with food effect evaluation, drug-drug interaction evaluation, and metabolite identification.

FB-1071 has demonstrated good therapeutic potential in preclinical ALS animal models, including slowing motor function impairment and extending survival time.

4B Technologies is committed to developing innovative drugs for major neurological diseases, focusing on neurotrophic factor signaling pathways and neuroinflammation mechanisms, developing original antibody and small molecule drugs for neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and Alzheimer's disease (AD), neurological functional diseases such as chronic pain, cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke, and optic neuropathy and other neurological diseases.

YinJia Biotech and Porton Bio Reach Strategic Partnership to Promote CGT Industry Development; Nearly 100 High-End Proteins Successfully Developed

On February 20, YinJia Biotech and Porton Bio announced a strategic partnership. The two parties will establish a strategic partnership in the development of core protein raw materials for cell and gene therapy, as well as the development of quality control and evaluation system detection reagent products, accelerating the development and commercialization of cell and gene therapy.

YinJia Biotech focuses on high-barrier core protein raw materials while actively laying out companion diagnostic products for increasingly mature assisted innovative therapies. Under the agreement, YinJia Biotech will provide Porton Bio with high-quality core key protein raw materials and quality control and evaluation system detection reagent product services, helping Porton Bio continue strengthening technology platform building, improving end-to-end CDMO platform capabilities, jointly promoting the R&D and industrialization of cell and gene therapy drugs, and driving rapid development of the CGT industry.

To date, YinJia Biotech has successfully developed nearly 100 high-end proteins, covering popular frontier fields including cell therapy, mRNA vaccines and circular RNA, new drug R&D, molecular diagnostics, and companion diagnostics for oncology new drugs, and continues strengthening capabilities in microbial genetic engineering and protein engineering, laying out the construction of a synthetic biology technology platform to inject new choices and vitality into the development of various innovative high-end proteins.

Feb

Vision

Aqara Human Presence Sensor FP2 Global Launch, Ushering in Era of Unconscious Active Intelligence

Lingdi Style3D Creates #Multi-Dimensional Symbiosis Series, Digital Runway + Real-Scene Shooting Interpret Future Fashion Aesthetics

Feb

RongHui

# Industry Innovation Day · Auto Industry Chain Technology Enterprise Innovation Sharing Session

With the wave of vehicle electrification and intelligence sweeping through, the role of automobiles is gradually shifting from transportation tools to intelligent mobile terminals. Intelligence has become an important development direction of the auto revolution, and technology enterprises are also exploring how to seize this massive growth engine.

In February, RongHui, together with EO Auto, invited auto industry chain technology enterprises to Huawei to discuss intelligent auto industry trends and innovation opportunities with industry experts and Huawei business leaders. Huawei Cloud China VP Wang Bin and Gaorong Ventures Director Xin Wang gave opening remarks; EY Advanced Manufacturing & Mobility Partner Tan Xingzhi, EO Chief Advisor and EO Auto Research Institute President Wang Zhong, Huawei Cloud Auto Industry Deputy GM Liu Tao, Shexun Technology CEO Wu Yongrong and other guests shared perspectives on intelligent auto industry trends, ecosystem building, and frontier technology advancement from multiple dimensions.