Rongbao | Karl Dynamics, Aerofugia, StarsComm, and ImmuPeak Kick Off the Year with Major Funding Rounds

Around the 2026 Spring Festival, a wave of innovative companies in autonomous driving, low-altitude economy, commercial aerospace, and novel drug development closed funding rounds. These deals didn't just set new records for year-opening financing in their respective sectors — backed by proprietary R&D breakthroughs and proven capabilities for scaled commercial deployment, these companies continue to define what's next for their industries. In this edition of the Gaorong Ventures newsletter, we round up these major funding rounds alongside breakthrough innovations unfolding in large language models and AI agents, autonomous delivery, and inference GPUs.

KargoBot Closes Over $100 Million Series B

Targeting 1,000 Autonomous Trucks Deployed This Year

On March 2, KargoBot announced it had raised over $100 million in a Series B round led jointly by Horizon Robotics and Gaorong Ventures, with participation from multiple new and existing investors.

As the first company in the industry to achieve a commercial closed loop in unmanned trunk-line freight, KargoBot has already run the full validation chain from technology to business operations. Its unmanned commercialization progress ranks in the industry's top tier, with cumulative freight volume reaching 1.2 billion ton-kilometers.

To date, KargoBot operates over 400 autonomous trucks, with cumulative driving mileage exceeding 35 million kilometers. The company runs autonomous freight testing and operations in more than ten provinces and municipalities, steadily advancing into a new phase of scaled commercial deployment. KargoBot expects to enable and deploy 1,000 autonomous trucks within this year, with plans to reach ten-thousand-unit-scale Robotruck empowerment in the coming years.

On the technology front, KargoBot has built an autonomous driving platform powered by end-to-end architecture and reinforcement learning at its core. The company has developed KargoOmni™, a comprehensive trunk-line unmanned freight solution series covering short, medium, and long-haul scenarios through both intelligent mixed platooning and single-truck autonomous modes. This solution significantly boosts operational efficiency — labor efficiency improves by 83% to 300%, overall operational efficiency increases by over 50%, and energy utilization efficiency rises by more than 30% — driving systemic transformation across the industry. Read more

Aerofugia Closes Nearly 1 Billion Yuan New Round

Accelerating the Era of Scaled eVTOL Commercial Operations

Recently, leading domestic eVTOL original equipment manufacturer Aerofugia announced a new funding round of nearly 1 billion yuan, setting a record for the largest single financing deal in the low-altitude economy sector this year. The round was led by CSC Financial, with Gaorong Ventures and other institutions co-investing, and multiple existing shareholders continuing their support.

As a domestic leader and internationally competitive player in the low-altitude economy, Aerofugia adheres to independent R&D and clean-sheet design. The company has built full-chain capabilities covering product development, airworthiness certification, manufacturing, and commercial operations, becoming a model of "technology + scenario" dual-wheel drive in the industry.

In 2025, Aerofugia achieved several milestones: its first aircraft rolled off the production line, marking the beginning of scaled manufacturing; the AE200-100 production aircraft completed Phase I verification test flights, maintaining industry-leading R&D and airworthiness progress; and the first phase of its global headquarters topped out, laying a solid foundation for scaled delivery. On the market and orders front, Aerofugia pioneered China's first "civil aviation + low-altitude travel" collaborative demonstration. The company has also accumulated over 1,000 orders, earning global recognition for Chinese intelligent manufacturing.

StarSilicon Completes Multiple Strategic Rounds

Advancing 5G/6G Satellite Internet in Commercial Aerospace

On February 9, StarSilicon announced the completion of multiple strategic financing rounds, led respectively by Ceyuan Capital, Hengqin Shenhe Investment, and jointly by Yuanhang Capital and Pianxuan Fund, with participation from Gaorong Ventures and numerous other new and existing shareholders.

StarSilicon focuses on 5G/6G communications technology, providing competitive full-scenario space-air-ground integrated chip and solution offerings, including 5G/6G eMBB, RedCap, and NTN terminal/smartphone baseband chip platforms and solutions. Industry applications cover smartphone direct-to-satellite, satellite communication terminals, airborne communications, UAV ad-hoc networking, eVTOL communication and sensing, vehicular communications and intelligent cockpits, 5G FWA fixed wireless access, emergency communications, trunked radio, industrial IoT, and other 5G/6G and satellite communication scenarios for ubiquitous connectivity.

Over the past several years, StarSilicon has maintained high investment in 5G/6G satellite internet for commercial aerospace. It is the only vendor in the industry with full-series commercial solutions for both L/S/C and S/S-band 5G NTN smartphone direct-to-satellite baseband SoC chips and Ku/Ka-band 5G NTN satellite communication terminal baseband SoC chips. The company actively implements national strategic planning, contributing technological strength to the high-quality development of China's commercial aerospace satellite internet industry. Read more

Immunofoco Closes Nearly 200 Million Yuan Pre-IPO Round

Dual-Engine Layout in Solid Tumors and In Vivo CAR-T

Recently, globally leading innovative cell therapy company Immunofoco completed a Pre-IPO round of nearly 200 million yuan. The round was led by Gaorong Ventures and Jifeng Capital, with participation from multiple new and existing shareholders.

Since its founding, Immunofoco has focused on clinical needs in solid tumor treatment, building next-generation CAR-T technology platforms to address current pain points in solid tumor CAR-T, including SNR, Peri Cruiser®, T-Booster, and SolidGuard.

Immunofoco is steadily advancing multiple pipeline programs, continuously accumulating clinical and R&D data. Its potential best-in-class candidate IMC002 (targeting CLDN18.2) is the second-fastest solid tumor CAR-T therapy globally in clinical development. Phase III pivotal clinical trials for advanced gastric cancer were initiated in Q3 2025, with patient enrollment currently underway. IMC001 (targeting EpCAM) is the world's only EpCAM CAR-T therapy to have received IND approval from both the U.S. FDA and China's National Medical Products Administration and enter Phase I clinical trials.

Building on steady clinical advancement of its autologous CAR-T programs, Immunofoco has made a forward-looking bet on in vivo CAR-T frontier technology, building its proprietary iMAGIC in vivo CAR-T generation platform. Read more

Cathay Therapeutics Closes Nearly 500 Million Yuan Round

Targeting Nuclear Receptor and GPCR Novel Drug R&D

On February 10, Cathay Therapeutics announced the successful completion of a new round of nearly 500 million yuan. The round was led by Zhongping Capital, with multiple new and existing shareholders co-investing. Over the past ten months, Cathay Therapeutics has cumulatively raised nearly 1 billion yuan. Gaorong Ventures led Cathay Therapeutics' Pre-A round in 2020 and participated in subsequent rounds, continuing to increase its stake in this round.

Cathay Therapeutics focuses on original discovery and clinical advancement of nuclear receptor and G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) novel drugs. Starting from primary biliary cholangitis, the company has expanded indications to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic diseases.

To date, Cathay Therapeutics' core pipeline asset CS0159 has received FDA Breakthrough Therapy designation and Orphan Drug status, with multiple breakthrough advances. Oral tablet formulation has successfully completed Phase II trials in the U.S. for MASH indication. In China, the Phase II core study for PBC indication has concluded with significant therapeutic potential demonstrated, and Phase III trials are now being actively advanced. Meanwhile, the research team is actively exploring CS0159 combination regimens, conducting studies combining CS0159 with GLP-1 receptor agonists. This approach promises to manage body weight from multiple angles for enhanced weight reduction effects, while also delivering synergistic benefits in improving hepatic steatosis and inflammation. Read more

Moonshot AI Surpasses Full-Year 2025 Revenue in 20 Days

K2.5 Ranks #1 on OpenClaw Model Call Leaderboard

On January 27, Moonshot AI released and open-sourced its Kimi K2.5 model. This is Moonshot AI's most intelligent model to date, achieving open-source state-of-the-art performance on agent tasks, coding, images, video, and a range of general intelligence tasks. It is also Moonshot AI's most versatile model, simultaneously supporting vision and text input, thinking and non-thinking modes, and both conversational and agent tasks.

According to OpenRouter data, Kimi K2.5 has maintained leading call volume and ranks #1 on the OpenClaw model call leaderboard. Kimi Claw, launched during the Spring Festival, enables one-click deployment — users can quickly access OpenClaw functionality without purchasing hardware or servers, and without writing any code.

Additionally, K2.5's new Agent swarm feature can dispatch up to 100 agent instances in parallel to process 1,500 steps and complete more complex tasks, pioneering the direction of swarm-based agents.

On February 23, less than a month after K2.5's release, Moonshot AI announced that its cumulative revenue over the previous 20 days had already exceeded total revenue for all of 2025. Growth was driven by surges in both global paying users and API call volume. Revenue structure also shifted post-K2.5 launch, with international revenue now exceeding domestic revenue.

Neolix Autonomous Driving Mileage Surpasses 100 Million Kilometers

Recently, Neolix's cumulative autonomous driving mileage surpassed 100 million kilometers, making it the first company in the global autonomous delivery industry to complete 100 million kilometers of real-world operational validation. This milestone marks a critical step forward for autonomous delivery in terms of scaling, commercialization, and normalized operations.

As the world's largest-scale provider of L4 autonomous urban delivery (RoboVan) solutions, Neolix has built a global operations network covering 15 countries and over 300 cities, with presence across China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Portugal, and other markets. The company has completed deep validation across diverse climates, complex road conditions, and varied scenarios, leading the global proliferation and deployment of autonomous delivery technology with the hard power of "Created in China."

In 2025, Neolix became the first in the industry to launch a leading L4 mapless autonomous driving solution, significantly reducing reliance on high-definition maps. This cuts related costs while enabling cross-regional deployment at "hour-level" speed. Powered by its "vision-to-action" foundation model "Neolix-VA," the system achieves breakthroughs in spatial understanding and behavioral decision-making in complex scenarios with a minimal sensor configuration of just 1 LiDAR and 12 cameras.

Analemma's AI Research System "FARS" Produces 100 Papers in 10 Days

On February 13, Analemma began globally live-streaming the deployment and operation of its fully automated research system FARS on its official website and multiple social media platforms. FARS (Fully Automated Research System) is an end-to-end AI research system developed by Analemma, capable of autonomously completing the full research workflow including literature review, hypothesis generation, code writing, experiment execution, and paper writing.

This livestream marked FARS's first large-scale deployment, with the goal of autonomously completing 100 papers during the broadcast. As of February 23, the 100th research paper was completed after 228.5 hours of FARS operation, achieving the target ahead of schedule. On average, FARS produced each paper in approximately 2 hours, 17 minutes, and 5 seconds, consuming about 114 million tokens at a cost of roughly $1,040 per paper.

FARS's breakthrough lies in creating a human-intervention-free, purely AI-driven end-to-end research system. Currently, FARS focuses primarily on AI research itself, a paradigm the company calls AI-for-AI (AI4AI) — using AI to accelerate and automate AI research.

Sunrise Releases Next-Generation Inference GPU, Advancing Domestic Inference Computing

Recently, Sunrise released its next-generation inference GPU, the Qiwang S3.

Sunrise is a domestic company with full-stack self-developed AI computing chips. Spun off from SenseTime's large chip division at the end of 2024, it operates independently, focusing on R&D and commercialization of high-performance GPUs and multi-modal scenario inference chips. With eight years of technical accumulation, 2 billion yuan in R&D investment, and engineering validation across two generations of mass-produced chips, Sunrise has become a core force in domestic GPU substitution.

The S3 is built for large-scale inference. Its core objective is to drive down the cost per token in real business applications, targeting a 10x improvement in inference cost-performance ratio. To this end, the S3 features targeted design across multiple key dimensions: optimized compute-to-bandwidth ratio for mainstream large model inference workloads; stability design for high-concurrency, long-duration operation scenarios; and more system-friendly integration and deployment adaptability.

Additionally, Sunrise released an inference system-level solution. Under traditional architectures, GPU resource idle rates are high and deployment, operations, and maintenance are challenging. Through full-stack optimization of its self-developed GPUs with software and hardware systems, Sunrise is working with partners to build a new-generation inference system-level solution.

China Successfully Launches Satellite Internet Low-Orbit Group 19, with GalaxySpace Leading Development

On January 19, China successfully launched the Satellite Internet Low-Orbit Group 19 satellites from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site using a Long March 12 carrier rocket. The satellites entered their predetermined orbits and the launch mission was a complete success. This satellite group marks the second time GalaxySpace has independently undertaken the development of such space infrastructure.

This satellite group carries multiple core technology products independently developed by GalaxySpace, including industry-advanced phased arrays, millimeter-wave antennas, integrated electronics, and power systems, all targeting lower costs. The development process achieved full digital workflow integration for the first time, with automated testing, intelligent assembly and inspection, and launch site process optimization tailored for batch production characteristics, substantially improving efficiency.

In recent years, space infrastructure construction has accelerated, with satellite broadband and direct-to-cell satellite markets growing rapidly. In the direct-to-cell domain, GalaxySpace has already built technical capabilities benchmarking Starlink, covering antennas, satellite base stations, and solar arrays. The company has successfully launched and completed in-orbit test verification of its self-developed direct-to-cell capable satellite, continuing to advance technological innovation and embrace the 6G era.

Style3D Enables Embodied Intelligence "Clothes Folding," Extending Decade of Deformable Body Simulation to Physical AI

Recently, Style3D formally partnered with Galaxy Universal based on its high-fidelity deformable body simulation and industrial-grade closed-loop verification technology.

Style3D specializes in high-fidelity deformable body simulation and industrial-grade closed-loop verification technology. Starting from the fashion industry, Style3D's technology now serves over 3,000 global brands. The company is currently extending its decade of accumulated deformable body simulation capabilities to the broader physical AI domain.

Recently, Galaxy Universal robots demonstrated multiple real-life operational capabilities including "clothes folding" at the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala. Clothing, as a typical flexible object with complex deformations and variable states, is widely regarded in the industry as a high-difficulty task for testing robotic dexterous manipulation and generalization capabilities — often called the "Holy Grail" of robotic manipulation.

Style3D can enhance Galaxy Universal's physical simulation technology for cloth material simulation solving, improving simulation fidelity for garments. Going forward, it will also provide critical data modeling and simulation support for more embodied intelligence companies, accelerating the deployment of embodied intelligence in complex manipulation scenarios.

Qi Biotech Approved as Ministry of Agriculture Key Laboratory, with 5 Domestic Gene Editing Safety Certificates

Recently, Qi Biotech was formally approved as a Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Key Laboratory for Gene Editing Breeding Technology Development and Application, marking a new step forward in China's innovation platform building for the industrial and agricultural application of independently controllable gene editing technology.

Relying on its self-developed SEEDIT™ gene editing technology platform and independently controllable editing tools including TranC, QBEmax, and PrimeROOT™, Qi Biotech has achieved a series of breakthrough results in crop trait improvement, demonstrating strong core competitiveness.

The company is not only the first Chinese enterprise to receive USDA exemption in the United States, but has also obtained 5 safety certificates in domestic gene editing safety evaluation applications, covering the three major staple crops of soybean, wheat, and rice. In 2026, Qi Biotech formally passed dual certification under the international Excellence Through Stewardship (ETS) and Plant Breeding Innovation (PBI) programs.

Geekplus Unveils World's First

General-Purpose Warehouse Robot Gino 1

German Chancellor Test-Rides New Mercedes-Benz S-Class

Experiencing Momenta Autonomous Driving Capabilities

From Claude Code to OpenClaw

Focusing on the New Agent Paradigm

In early 2026, AI agents are undergoing a paradigm shift from "production tools" to "autonomous agents." Claude Code is redefining how developers interact with terminals, while OpenClaw, as an open-source AI assistant framework, can enter real personal computing environments, giving everyone an always-on digital employee — ushering in the era of Personal Intelligence.

On March 7, Gaorong Ventures and Amazon Web Services held a closed-door session in Beijing. Moonshot AI, Pine, Amazon Web Services, and SiliconFlow joined together for in-depth analysis of the transformative opportunities brought by Claude Code and OpenClaw, sharing their latest product practices.