Rongbao | Embodied intelligence, chips accelerate commercial rollout and R&D; AI transforms creative industries, finance, and more

This edition of the Gaorong Ventures newsletter rounds up the latest developments from our portfolio companies, with a shared focus on — how AI, as a key driver of the new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, is reshaping industries from content creation to robotics to financial services; how innovation leaders across academia and industry are defining standards while pursuing both commercial mass production and technology pre-research in parallel; and the recognition earned by high-growth and emerging companies.

Aug

Funding

Adaps Photonics Closes Series C2 Round

Accelerating R&D and Mass Production of Premium 3D Camera Chips

Adaps Photonics recently announced the completion of its Series C2 funding round, led by Jintou Dingxin, an investment arm of Zhejiang Financial Holdings. The proceeds will be used to accelerate the R&D iteration and mass production of premium 3D camera chips. Gaorong Ventures led Adaps Photonics' Series B1 round in 2021 and continued to invest in its Series C round.

The company is committed to serving as an enabler through hardware, empowering premium 3D camera chips to advance autonomous driving, robotics, and high-end imaging — making "unified 2D and 3D sensing and computation, flexible and generalizable end-to-end intelligent perception, and extreme low-light high-frame-rate imaging" a reality. In the first half of 2024, Adaps Photonics experienced rapid business growth, entering the supply chains of multiple Chinese industry leaders and achieving mass production and shipment of premium chip projects.

Adaps Photonics has launched products including SiPM, single-photon imaging SPAD array chips, and multi-point and limited-point dToF chips and modules, continuously accelerating application deployment in intelligent vehicles, premium smartphones, robotics, automatic control, human-machine interaction, and smart home sectors.

The company boasts strong technical expertise in array imaging chips, with a technology roadmap that leads domestic and international industry-academia-research communities. In August 2023, Adaps Photonics released the ADS6311 chip, which led the industry in large-format SPAD array product planning and parameter definition at the time, and remains one of the highest-resolution all-solid-state LiDAR SPAD array chips on the market. Read more

LiblibAI Closes New Funding Round

The AI Image Generation Tool Chosen by Nearly 10 Million Users

AI image generation platform "LiblibAI" recently announced that it has completed three funding rounds within a single year, with participation from several top-tier venture capital firms. Gaorong Ventures participated in its angel round.

Founded in May 2023, LiblibAI is an AI-native application company dedicated to AI content creation and sharing, with the goal of fundamentally transforming how designers, illustrators, and self-media creators work, becoming a new AI-driven productive force in the content creation industry.

In February 2024, LiblibAI passed the fourth batch of deep synthesis service algorithm filings by the Cyberspace Administration of China; in March, it became the first AI community in China to complete filing under the Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services.

In just one year, LiblibAI has accumulated nearly 10 million professional AI image creators, ranking first in China by user volume; the community hosts over 100,000 original models, with more than 230 million AI images produced and shared, making it China's largest AI image generation platform and establishing a complete ecosystem covering AI content creation, sharing, copyright, and sales. Read more

JH Biotech Closes Series A Round

Accelerating Global Clinical Development of Targeted Radiopharmaceuticals

JH Biotech, a biotechnology company focused on theranostic targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT), recently announced the completion of its Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Huajin Investment and Huajin Avenue. Gaorong Ventures led JH Biotech's angel round in 2022 and continued to invest in this round.

Founded in 2021 by four experienced targeted radiopharmaceutical scientists with track records of successfully developing and commercializing multiple innovative radiopharmaceuticals, JH Biotech is dedicated to developing next-generation targeted radionuclide therapies (TRT) to improve patients' lives.

To date, JH Biotech has built proprietary technology platforms for targeted radiopharmaceutical development, covering ligand screening, modulated conjugation factors (J-Linker), and clinical translation. Through the J-Linker multifunctional conjugation platform, the company can effectively increase drug exposure at disease sites while reducing exposure to other organs, thereby delivering better therapeutic outcomes and wider safety margins for its pipeline candidates.

In July 2023, JH Biotech's self-developed, globally owned therapeutic candidate "JH02" received approval from the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of China's National Medical Products Administration to commence clinical studies, making JH Biotech the first company in China to receive dual approval for TRT pipeline candidates in both China and the US. In December 2023, JH02 successfully completed first-patient dosing in its Phase I clinical trial. Read more

Aug

By the Numbers

AgiBot Unveils Five Commercial Humanoid Robots

Commercial Mass Production and Technology Pre-Research in Parallel

On August 18, AgiBot held its 2024 annual product launch event, "AgiBot Expedition: Commercial Departure," unveiling five new commercial humanoid robots across its "Expedition" and "Lynx" families — the interactive service robot Expedition A2, the flexible manufacturing robot Expedition A2-W, the heavy-duty specialized robot Expedition A2-Max, the full-stack open-source robot Lynx X1, and the professional data collection robot Lynx X1-W.

The five new robots adopt a unified family design language, combining wheeled and legged configurations to cover application scenarios including interactive services, flexible manufacturing, specialized operations, research and education, and data collection.

Drawing an analogy to the three-electric system of new energy vehicles, AgiBot divides robot systems into four domains: power, perception, communication, and control, achieving comprehensive layout from the product's earliest stages. Additionally, borrowing from the mature L1-to-L5 technical classification system of autonomous driving, AgiBot has proactively defined an embodied intelligence technology roadmap from G1 to G5.

At the launch event, AgiBot announced a series of open-source initiatives: the high-performance intelligent robot communication framework AimRT will be open-sourced by end of September; the Lynx X1, incubated by X-Lab, will be progressively fully open-sourced starting September; and it previewed that a dataset of one million real-world and ten million simulated trajectories based on AIDEA will be open-sourced in Q4 this year.

ESWIN Computing's AI PC Chip Makes Debut

Deeply Adapted to Multiple Operating Systems

On August 21, the 2024 RISC-V China Summit — China's largest annual RISC-V event — was held. ESWIN Computing's high-performance AI PC chip, the EIC7702X, made an impressive appearance, demonstrating support for 50-channel high-definition video decoding and large model application scenarios, as well as desktop solutions deeply adapted to Tongxin, Kylin, and Debian operating systems.

The EIC7702X features an 8-core 64-bit out-of-order RISC-V high-performance processor and a self-developed efficient neural network processing unit (NPU), supporting full-stack floating-point computation to comprehensively accelerate generative large models; with rich peripheral expansion interfaces, it offers exceptional adaptability in AI intelligent devices and other fields.

For emerging applications such as binocular computing, edge AI computing, and AI Pi (AI chatbots), the EIC7702X can provide various product forms including chips, development boards, AI Boxes, and intelligent terminals according to customer needs, delivering efficient solutions for large models, cloud computing, AI PCs, and intelligent manufacturing.

Since its founding in 2019, ESWIN Computing has been firmly committed to independent R&D of the RISC-V computing architecture, continuously strengthening its technical capabilities. The company now possesses self-developed 32-bit and 64-bit series CPU IPs, covering general-purpose CPU IPs for high energy efficiency, high cost-performance, and high performance; information security-enhanced CPU IPs ensuring information security, compliant with national cryptographic standards and NIST encryption standards, with optional trusted execution environment (TEE); and functional safety-enhanced CPU IPs meeting ASIL-B/D standards and certifications.

Giant Biogene Granted Invention Patent for Recombinant Human Type XVII Collagen

Giant Biogene's exclusive patent — "Recombinant Human Type XVII Collagen, Preparation Method and Application Thereof" (China Invention Patent: ZL 202410154497.6) — has been formally granted by the China National Intellectual Property Administration, marking another breakthrough in the company's research and application of recombinant collagen.

Type XVII collagen differs from other common types with its distinctive molecular structure: its amino acid sequence is composed of multiple "non-G-X-Y structural domains" and "G-X-Y structural domains." Through extensive bioinformatics and protein structure-activity relationship analysis, this invention selected a truncated protein (p978-p1084) from Type XVII collagen, a non-G-X-Y structural domain rich in serine, with excellent biological activity in hair follicle repair and hair regeneration, even surpassing minoxidil, the commonly used hair growth-promoting drug, playing important roles in scalp care, hair strand care, and facial care.

For over 20 years, as a global leader in recombinant collagen, Giant Biogene has continuously advanced scientific innovation in recombinant collagen. Meanwhile, the company has been expanding its deep layout across multiple collagen types including Type I, Type III, and Type XVII, meeting diverse application scenarios across multiple industries.

XTransfer Serves 550,000+ SME Foreign Trade Businesses

Four Major Product and Service Upgrades

In August, the "2024 Future of Foreign Trade Conference" was held in Shenzhen, hosted by XTransfer, a China B2B foreign trade financial platform. The event attracted over 3,500 foreign trade entrepreneurs and overseas peers in person, along with over 2.35 million online viewers. At the conference, XTransfer announced the milestone of serving more than 550,000 small and medium-sized foreign trade businesses.

XTransfer summarized its four major product and service upgrades.

Broader local collection coverage, with local collection accounts now available for the US, UK, Europe, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, Nigeria, and more. Faster payments, with the launch of global local transfer payment functionality, enabling funds to reach local bank accounts in local currency in as fast as five minutes. More complete scenarios, such as support for logistics trade. More services, such as wealth management products.

XTransfer also recently announced the successful deployment of its self-developed large model for foreign trade finance, TradePilot, the first large model in the foreign trade finance domain, which has been progressively applied in risk identification and management, customer service, marketing and customer acquisition, and other areas.

Haijieya's EXCEED™ Approved for Thyroid Benign Nodule Ablation Treatment

Refined 18G Ablation Needle Matrix

On August 22, Haijieya announced that its EXCEED™ series tumor microwave ablation system has been approved for expanded indication in ablation treatment of benign thyroid nodules.

China reports 466,100 new thyroid cancer cases annually, with female incidence three times that of males, ranking third among female malignant tumors in China. Traditional surgical resection causes irreversible damage to thyroid tissue, hypothyroidism, and recurrent laryngeal nerve injury, requiring lifelong thyroid hormone replacement. In contrast, microwave ablation for thyroid nodules offers small incisions, short hospital stays, virtually no scarring, no cosmetic impact, and no long-term medication.

The EXCEED™ series tumor microwave ablation system is fully digital, supporting one-touch operation, circular ablation, and multi-point temperature monitoring, featuring a refined 18G ablation needle matrix, and has received dual NMPA & FDA certification.

Pulnovo Medical Advances PADN Global Multi-Center Clinical Study for Chronic Heart Failure with Pulmonary Hypertension

This year, Pulnovo Medical has continued advancing the global multi-center clinical study of PADN (Percutaneous Pulmonary Artery Denervation) for chronic heart failure with pulmonary hypertension. On August 7, the first clinical trial patient was successfully enrolled and treated at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), with the entire procedure proceeding smoothly, simple device operation, and good surgical outcomes. Following this enrollment, the PADN procedure combined with the new product demonstrated significant effects, with all clinical parameters showing favorable results.

On August 12, Pulnovo Medical successfully enrolled and treated its first clinical trial patient at the Sarawak Heart Centre in Malaysia. PADN technology, with its consistently outstanding performance, once again proved its safety and effectiveness in the Malaysian medical community.

Going forward, Pulnovo Medical will steadily advance the global clinical application of this new technology through multi-center clinical studies and international cooperation, gradually establishing a global evidence-based system.

Saint Bella Group and Tigerobo Technology Form Strategic Partnership

Doubling Down on Multi-Modal Large Models

Recently, Saint Bella Group and Tigerobo Technology announced a strategic partnership, through which the two parties will collaborate to build a care-focused multi-modal large model addressing women's full-cycle care needs. The model incorporates multiple modalities including audio and video, aiming to solve pain points in maternal and infant care, particularly the challenges of women's full-cycle care, and to develop a vertical domain model that "better understands women's and family care needs," empowering maternal and infant users and young families.

The two parties will advance the R&D and application of the care large model in phases for both B and C ends. Tigerobo Technology will develop SOP-AI assisted tools for care service providers serving newborn and maternal groups, AI-assisted tools for care service operations, and AI-assisted tools for care guidance and Q&A for C-end users; in the second phase, both parties will build on this large model to incorporate more diverse data on family care needs, extending these assisted tools to broader family care domains.

Horizon

Roborock's 10th Anniversary

Now in 170+ Countries and Regions

What Lies on the Road Ahead?

See Through the Lens of Seyond's LiDAR

Flexiv's Adaptive Parallel Robot Moonlight

Effortless Automation

Recognition

China Entrepreneur magazine recently announced its 2024 "Future Stars" selections, with Gaorong Ventures portfolio companies Flexiv, WeView, Mingming Henmang, HitGoo, and Unknown making the list of 21 high-growth innovative companies, and Moonshot AI, Cornerstone Robotics, AgiBot, HuaYi Quantum, Shexu Technology, Shilv Technology, XVERSE, and GravityXR featured in the Emerging 100.

On August 13, Fortune China released its 40 Under 40 Business Elites for 2024, with Moonshot AI founder and CEO Zhilin Yang, AgiBot co-founder and CTO Peng Zhihui, Adaps Photonics chairman and CEO Zang Kai, and Saint Bella Group founder and CEO Xiang Hua making the list.

On August 20, the 2024 PEDaily TOP100 Investors were announced, with Gaorong Ventures founding partner Michael Mao featured.

In the Jazzyear 2023-2024 China Technology Industry Investment Rankings, Gaorong Ventures was named among the TOP30 Best Investment Institutions in Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits; Gaorong Ventures partner Yuan Feng was named among the TOP20 Best Investors in Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits; and Gaorong Ventures managing director Xin Wang was named among the TOP10 Best Investors in Carbon Neutrality.

Gaorong Gathering

# Gaorong Ventures Healthcare CEO Closed-Door Meeting & Healthcare Track Demo Day

From "super strength" to "all-around excellence," Chinese innovative healthcare companies today need not only solid technical or R&D foundations but also robust capabilities across financing, global expansion, regulatory compliance, and organization — ultimately standing firm and weathering cycles.

On September 4, Gaorong Ventures hosted its Healthcare CEO Closed-Door Meeting and Healthcare Track Demo Day in Shanghai, featuring closed-door roadshows from seven quality companies in medical devices, diagnostic reagents, new drug R&D, agricultural technology, and healthcare digitalization.

He Juying, research group head of CITIC Securities' Healthcare and Big Health Research and chief pharmaceutical industry analyst; Chris Lee, founder & CEO of VentureBlick and former APAC president and China president of Medtronic; and Cai Yunbo, co-founder & CMO of VentureBlick, shared insights on healthcare primary and secondary market trends, industrial policy, and accelerated overseas expansion.