Gaorong Ventures Report: Physical AI, Domestic Computing Power, Controllable Nuclear Fusion, and Medical Innovation Companies Close Major Funding Rounds

From the continuous leap in model capabilities to hard tech crossing the thresholds of engineering and industrialization, a new wave of technological innovation is accelerating its march into the real world. In this issue of Rongbao, we focus on frontier areas including physical AI, domestic computing power, controlled nuclear fusion, and medical innovation — tracking major funding milestones for multiple tech companies, as well as their breakthroughs in product launches, mass production, clinical translation, and global market expansion.

Xpeng Motors' Robotics Unit Raises Over $900 Million in First Funding Round

Pioneering Mass Production and Application of Physical AI

On August 24, Xpeng Motors announced that its humanoid robotics business has signed equity financing agreements with multiple investors. This marks the first funding round for Xpeng's robotics unit, raising over $900 million at a post-money valuation exceeding $6.3 billion — setting a new record for single-round private equity financing in China's embodied AI industry. The round was led by IDG Capital, with participation from Gaorong Ventures, and strategic backing from Tencent and Alibaba.

As a key vehicle for Xpeng Motors' physical AI strategy, Xpeng IRON is positioned as a highly human-like, AI-driven, premium general-purpose humanoid robot with high safety standards. The company has built a full-stack, deeply integrated hardware-software self-research system spanning the body, brain, cerebellum, data, and infrastructure, exploring mass production and broad application for real-world scenarios.

Xpeng IRON plans to enter mass production by the end of 2026, beginning with commercial deployments in Xpeng's stores and campuses, with official launch and delivery in China and overseas markets scheduled for 2027. Read more

Gaorong Ventures Co-Leads Pragmatik Labs' New Funding Round

Supporting the Next-Generation Agent Paradigm Spanning Digital and Physical Worlds

Recently, Pragmatik Labs announced the completion of a new funding round. The round was co-led by Gaorong Ventures and HSG, with participation from Tencent and the Shanghai Future Industry Fund.

Pragmatik Labs is an AI company conducting frontier research and product development, founded by Justin Lin, former technical lead for Alibaba's Qwen. The company focuses on next-generation Agent technology that bridges digital and physical worlds. It aims to transform knowledge work through digital Agents while bringing intelligence into real-world environments, using real-world feedback to continuously shape technical research and product evolution. Read more

Xi Wang Sunrise Completes 2 Billion Yuan Strategic Funding Round

Accelerating Commercialization of Domestic Inference Computing Power

Recently, Xi Wang Sunrise, a domestic full-stack self-developed AI computing chip company, announced the completion of a new 2 billion yuan strategic funding round at a post-money valuation of approximately 20 billion yuan. The round was jointly invested by Tongchuang Weiyue, CASSTAR, PICC Capital, Tongcheng Travel, CP Group, Janchor Partners, CCB Equity, Andon Health, and Yingfeng Environment. Gaorong Ventures invested in Xi Wang in early 2026 and continued to participate in the company's Series B and C rounds.

Xi Wang Sunrise was spun off from SenseTime's large chip division at the end of 2024 and operates independently, focusing on the R&D and commercialization of high-performance GPUs and multi-modal inference chips. In January 2026, the company released its inference chip S3, targeting key issues of inference efficiency, cost, and supply certainty.

On the commercialization front, the company disclosed that it achieved deliveries exceeding 10,000 AI chips in 2025, with customers including SenseTime, 4Paradigm, and other internet and AI companies.

StarSilicon Completes New Strategic Industry Funding Round

Accelerating Independent Innovation of 6G LEO Satellite Communication Baseband Chips

Recently, StarSilicon completed a new strategic industry funding round. New investors include Shanghai state-owned asset-backed Xinhuan Investment, Fuzhou Gulou State Investment-backed Zizifang Venture Capital, Full Truck Alliance, Xinhua Net Venture Capital, Tongding Group, Boqing Capital, and Shengrong Capital; existing shareholders Langrun Lifang, GGV Capital, and Pianxuan Fund continued to increase their stakes. Gaorong Ventures invested in StarSilicon in early 2026.

StarSilicon focuses on 5G/6G satellite internet, providing customers with full-scenario space-air-ground-sea integrated baseband chips and solutions, with products covering 5G/6G eMBB, RedCap, and NTN terminal baseband chip platforms. Its industrial applications extend to direct-to-cell satellite, satellite communication terminals, UAV ad-hoc networking, vehicle-mounted communications, emergency communications, and industrial IoT scenarios.

As satellite internet accelerates its synergistic construction with ground communication networks and computing networks, StarSilicon will use this funding round as a new starting point to continue tackling core satellite communication baseband chip technologies, enrich its portfolio of domestic satellite terminal products, and drive deep integration of satellite communications with 5G-A and computing networks.

NovaFusion Completes 1.2 Billion Yuan Pre-A Series Funding

Accelerating FRC-SMR Fusion Reactor Industrialization

Recently, NovaFusion announced the completion of a 1.2 billion yuan Pre-A series funding round. In this round, Meituan Longzhu and Hillhouse continued to increase their investments, while Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group and Guozhong Capital joined as new strategic investors. Gaorong Ventures had previously participated in the company's angel and angel+ rounds.

Just 16 months after its founding, NovaFusion has raised a total of 2.4 billion yuan, with a post-money valuation exceeding 10 billion yuan. The company focuses on the R&D and industrialization of Field-Reversed Configuration Small Modular Reactors (FRC-SMR), targeting the demand for high-density, uninterrupted, low-carbon energy in AI data centers and other scenarios.

Led by Dr. Guo Houyang, a pioneer in FRC-SMR technology, NovaFusion is advancing independent R&D and domestic validation around core components including high-power all-solid-state switches, modular high-field magnets, large-scale quartz vacuum chambers, and nanosecond-precision control and acquisition systems. Currently, "Nova-1" has completed engineering design and core component development, fully transitioning to assembly and integration, with first plasma discharge planned for the end of 2026 and progress toward achieving deuterium-tritium equivalent fusion net energy gain Q>1 by 2029.

BlueStar Fusion Completes Hundreds of Millions of Yuan Angel+ Round

Racing to Build the World's First High-Temperature Superconducting Stellarator

Recently, BlueStar Fusion, focused on stellarator nuclear fusion, announced the completion of an angel+ round raising hundreds of millions of yuan. The proceeds will primarily fund the construction of the world's first high-temperature superconducting stellarator. Gaorong Ventures had participated in the company's angel round and continued to significantly increase its investment in this round.

Founded in August 2025, BlueStar Fusion has grown from a five-person physics design team to a nearly 100-person interdisciplinary team covering the full chain of fusion device R&D over the past 11 months, completing multiple consecutive funding rounds.

Currently, the company's Phase I device has completed physics design, proprietary AI technology platform development, host engineering design and expert review, and high-temperature superconducting model coil testing, with multiple key systems entering pre-development and procurement stages. The project is transitioning comprehensively from preliminary design and simulation validation to engineering implementation. According to plans, the company will complete Phase I high-temperature superconducting stellarator construction in 2027. Read more

Cornerstone Robotics Receives Approximately $700 Million Strategic Investment from Medtronic

Partnering to Expand Surgical Robot Global Market

Innovative surgical robotics company Cornerstone Robotics recently announced a strategic partnership with global medtech leader Medtronic. Under the agreement, Medtronic will make a strategic investment of approximately $700 million in Cornerstone Robotics and obtain distribution rights for Cornerstone's Sentire® laparoscopic surgical robot in certain approved markets outside the United States. Gaorong Ventures had co-led Cornerstone Robotics' angel round in 2019 and continued to participate in multiple subsequent funding rounds.

This strategic investment and commercial partnership from Medtronic further demonstrates industry confidence in Cornerstone Robotics' independent innovation capabilities, product competitiveness, and long-term growth potential. It will also help expand Sentire's market reach and clinical applications, accelerating Cornerstone Robotics' global commercialization process — marking high recognition from international medical enterprises of Chinese companies' scientific research strength, independent innovation capabilities, and global commercialization potential. Read more

Kendall Therapeutics Completes Hundreds of Millions of Yuan Series A

Global Leader in Brain Science and Ophthalmic Precision Therapeutics

Recently, Kendall Therapeutics announced the completion of a Series A round raising hundreds of millions of yuan, led by Taiping Healthcare Fund, with follow-on investment from Huatai Zijin fund, and participation from Gaorong Ventures and other new and existing shareholders.

Founded by neuroscientist Professor Luo Minmin, Kendall Therapeutics focuses on developing innovative therapies for central nervous system and ophthalmic diseases. Its R&D pipeline covers retinitis pigmentosa, refractory epilepsy, refractory pain, major depressive disorder, neurodegenerative diseases, and malignant brain tumors.

Leveraging its precision neuromodulation technology platform, Kendall Therapeutics is advancing the clinical translation of optogenetics, chemogenetics, and other frontier technologies, and accelerating the global validation and application of original Chinese brain science achievements through pathways including dual China-US filings. Read more

Weiling Medical Raises Over 100 Million Yuan

Accelerating Clinical Translation of Implantable Brain-Computer Interfaces

Recently, Weiling Medical announced the completion of a funding round exceeding 100 million yuan. The round was led by Junzhong Capital, with its managed Jiaxing Innovate Industry Fund as one of the main investors. Weiling Medical had previously received support from Gaorong Ventures, Life Science Park Venture Capital, CDH Investments, and Leaguer & Innovation; Gaorong Ventures had led the company's angel+ round in 2023.

Weiling Medical focuses on the clinical translation of implantable brain-computer interface technology, building full-chain independent R&D capabilities around neural signal acquisition, hardware circuitry, and AI decoding. The company has long focused on the central nervous system critical care track and has completed China's first fully implantable brain-computer interface system implantation surgery for a patient with disorders of consciousness, in collaboration with partner hospitals. Read more

2.8 Trillion Parameters, 1 Million Token Context Window

Kimi K3 Resets Open-Source Model Capability Boundaries

Recently, Moonshot AI officially launched Kimi K3. Kimi K3 is a 2.8 trillion parameter model built with Kimi Delta Attention and Attention Residuals technology, with native visual understanding and a 1 million token context window.

Moonshot AI has open-sourced the complete model weights and technical report for Kimi K3, as well as the key infrastructure technologies supporting model training. Now, anyone can download and deploy the Kimi K3 model — whether for internal R&D or embedding into end-user-facing products. Read more

World's First Software-Defined Near-Memory Computing 3D Chip

Dongfang Computing Core DF1000 Released, Targeting Foundational Innovation in Computing Architecture

Recently, Dongfang Computing Core released its first software-defined near-memory computing 3D AI chip, the DF1000. As the world's first software-defined near-memory computing 3D chip, the DF1000 achieves hardware-software decoupling and dynamic reconfiguration through software-defined chip technology, improving hardware resource utilization through spatial parallelism and time-division multiplexing to deliver 520 TFLOPS@BF16 computing power.

The DF1000 is China's first AI chip to adopt DRAM-Logic wafer-level hybrid bonding 3D vertical packaging. By vertically stacking and integrating computing and memory layers through 3D hybrid bonding technology, compressing interconnect pitch to sub-micron levels, it achieves order-of-magnitude improvements in interconnect density and bandwidth density, with memory access bandwidth reaching 6.4 TB/s. This design fundamentally addresses the three major industry pain points of the "memory wall," "bandwidth wall," and "power wall," efficiently supporting high-intensity computing demands such as large model training and inference.

Chinese Commercial Space Company Makes First Complete Satellite Export to Southeast Asia

GalaxySpace Continues Supporting New Space Infrastructure

On August 25, the Long March 6C Y1 carrier rocket successfully delivered 7 satellites into their designated orbits. Among them, CAS Satellite 14, CAS Satellite 15, and GalaxySpace Lingzhi-09 Thailand CubeSat were developed by commercial space company GalaxySpace.

The GalaxySpace Lingzhi-09 Thailand CubeSat will primarily provide Thailand with land, agriculture, and ecological remote sensing data collection services, as well as support practical teaching in satellite design and development, space TT&C, and remote sensing applications at Thai universities. This marks the first time a Chinese commercial satellite company has completed complete satellite development, launch, and in-orbit delivery for a Southeast Asian country, and GalaxySpace's first complete satellite and ground system export with deployment in a Belt and Road partner country.

Based on a Decade of Data Foundation and Proprietary Algorithms

Unknown Builds "Expert-Level Research Agent" for the Microbiome Field

Recently, Unknown officially released xBiome OS™ v1.0, a professional research intelligence system for microbiome and live biotherapeutic product R&D, exploring vertical AI Agent capabilities for microbiome research and development scenarios, precisely serving and empowering academic experts, clinical specialists, and enterprise researchers in the field. Founded in 2017, Unknown focuses on FMT, drug discovery, and probiotics.

xBiome OS™ will continue to evolve: extending into synthetic biology and connecting with automated experimental platforms, allowing hypotheses proposed by the Agent to be executed by equipment with experimental data automatically feeding back to refine the model, gradually closing the wet-dry loop.

Serving 100,000+ Merchants, Real-Time Translation Across 130+ Languages

Dianxiaomi's Duoke Launches "Next-Generation Self-Evolving AI Customer Service System"

Recently, Duoke, the global e-commerce AI customer service system under Dianxiaomi Group, officially launched its "next-generation self-evolving AI customer service system." Built on a multi-Agent architecture and multi-Skill system, Duoke's self-evolving AI customer service system achieves a capability leap from "able to answer" to "able to handle tasks" to "self-evolving," bringing the e-commerce cross-border industry truly business-savvy, autonomously iterative intelligent AI customer service solutions.

Duoke has currently served over 100,000 merchants, is integrated with multiple mainstream e-commerce platforms, supports unified management of multi-store messages, real-time translation across 130+ languages, and 24/7 global reception, helping sellers maintain stable global operations.

Chinese Cardiovascular Original Technology First Appears in Global Top-Tier Journal

Pulnovo Medical's PADN Technology Is Transforming Chinese Innovation into Global Standard

Recently, Pulnovo Medical's original Pulmonary Artery Denervation (PADN) latest clinical study was featured in the Hot Line session of the European Society of Cardiology Congress (ESC 2026). This is one of the world's premier cardiovascular clinical research conferences, and PADN is the first Chinese cardiovascular original technology to be published in the top-tier medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

This technology is accelerating industrial translation. PADN has been cited in 7 domestic and international clinical guidelines, moving from expert consensus to standard treatment recommendation. PADN treatment for Type 1 pulmonary hypertension has received regulatory approval in 12 countries and regions. For Type 2 (PH-LHD) pulmonary hypertension, PADN is accelerating toward global regulatory systems.

Lovart: Redefining the Way AI Designs

AI for Science Closed-Door Salon — Redefining the Research Paradigm

Recently, Gaorong Ventures' Ronghui, together with Amazon Web Services and Pujiang Science and Technology Review · Zuichuang Community, hosted an AI for Science closed-door salon in Beijing. Guests from AI infrastructure companies and innovation companies in life sciences, materials, and other fields discussed topics including the global landscape and China opportunities in AI4S, methodologies for Agentic AI-driven research, applications in life sciences and materials, and commercialization pathways. The event gathered over 90 AI4S entrepreneurs, university and research institution researchers, and industry R&D professionals.

Redrawing the AI Talent Map — Organizational Evolution in the AI Era

Gaorong Ventures, together with Deel and Beating, recently hosted the "Redrawing the AI Talent Map — Organizational Evolution in the AI Era" event in Beijing. Guests from Lark, BOSS Zhipin, DINQ, Moxt AI, Advance Intelligence Group, and other companies discussed AI-era competency frameworks, AI talent distribution, Agent collaboration, and future organizational forms.