"Yimu Technology" announced the completion of a tens-of-millions RMB angel round, with Linear Capital as the sole investor.

By Weixin Lin

Edited by Xiao Yang

36Kr has learned that Yimu Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. ("Yimu Technology") recently completed a tens-of-millions-of-yuan angel round, led exclusively by Linear Capital. The proceeds will go toward product R&D and market expansion.

Founded in 2015, Yimu Technology specializes in digital and intelligent solutions for livestock farms. Its systems have already helped multiple large-scale farms complete digital transformation, making it a preferred choice for domestic substitution in farm digitization, and the company has expanded into the North American market.

Over the past 40-plus years, the Chinese diet has shifted from starch to protein. Per capita grain consumption has declined year by year, while consumption of animal-based foods has grown rapidly. Chinese consumers' demand for high-protein dairy and meat products has surged dramatically. Traditional livestock production methods — low efficiency, high costs, unstable quality — can no longer fully satisfy this demand. Meanwhile, China still imports large quantities of dairy and beef at high production costs. Given national food security strategy, improving self-sufficiency and international competitiveness is urgent.

In recent years, dairy cattle, beef cattle, and sheep farms have been accelerating toward large-scale, intensive operations. Large-scale dairy farming already accounts for over 80% of the sector, efficiency has improved substantially, and 10,000-head farms are becoming common. The largest single dairy farm served by Yimu Technology houses 40,000 head.

Yimu Technology founder Zhifen Ma told 36Kr, "Traditional methods simply can't efficiently manage large-scale, intensive farms. From a market perspective, digitization and intelligence are the future of ranch management." The transition to digital and intelligent farm management is therefore imperative.

Yimu Technology's core business is providing comprehensive digital and intelligent farm solutions. Its current offering comprises 12 standard modules that can be freely combined to quickly match different farm needs. The most fundamental module is a SaaS-based farm production management system — essentially the "intelligent operating system" of a digital farm. Ma said this system is secure, professional, and user-friendly, lowering the barrier to adoption.

Yimu's Comprehensive Digital and Intelligent Farm Solution

The other 11 modules use a "software plus hardware" approach to address specific production challenges: intelligent cattle identification and management, precision feeding, intelligent weighing, computer vision-based body condition scoring (body condition refers to assessing whether cattle are over- or underweight). Previously, this work required professionally trained livestock appraisers to conduct subjective scoring. Yimu Technology applies cameras combined with AI machine learning to dairy cattle body condition scoring, replacing the manual daily work of farm workers. From a feeding and nutrition perspective, more precise feed formulation, mixing, and delivery provides more accurate nutrition for dairy cattle while saving on feed costs; dairy cattle behavior monitoring; early disease warning; intelligent environmental temperature and humidity control; automatic milk yield measurement, and more.

Yimu Cloud — "The Intelligent Brain of the Farm"

Data from different modules syncs in real time to the farm's intelligent brain, "Yimu Cloud," where mechanism models and empirical models analyze the data, converting it into actionable information for frontline production management and daily farm operations. For example, through intelligent analysis, the system guides frontline workers in precise feed mixing and delivery, identifies which cattle need timely breeding or treatment, and uses IoT technology to quickly locate these animals needing attention. This information is automatically sent to workers' mobile phones or tablets, enabling them to carry out daily work efficiently and conveniently.

After years of operation, Yimu Technology now has over 1.3 million head of cattle under real-time online service, accumulating substantial high-quality industry data. On one hand, this big data continues to optimize models and parameters; on the other, multiple research findings have been published in top-tier industry journals. Ma noted that since 2020, Yimu Technology has annually published Status of Key Production Performance in Large-Scale Chinese Dairy Farms, gradually establishing China's production performance evaluation system and benchmarking standards for large-scale farms, helping drive digital and intelligent transformation across the industry.

Going forward, Yimu Digital Intelligence will extend from serving farms to serving the entire livestock industry. Through development of the "Yimu Connect" project, based on "data intelligence plus network coordination," it will connect farms, solution providers, material suppliers, and research institutions to precisely and efficiently match farm needs with relevant solutions, improving productivity across the industry. Ma revealed that Yimu Connect version 1.0 has already begun internal testing.

Yimu Technology currently serves clients including Modern Farming, Ningxia State Farms, and Wondersun, and has established strategic partnerships with Lanzhou University, Jilin University, and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, among other universities and research institutions.

On the team side, founder Zhifen Ma received his Ph.D. from Lanzhou University, where he studied under Jizhou Ren, a senior academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and founding father of modern grassland science. Ma was previously responsible for promoting and operating VAS's DC305 product and other offerings in China, with over ten years of industry experience. The co-founders and core team each have 8–16 years of experience in farm production management and digital intelligence.

Songyan Huang, partner at Linear Capital, commented: "Smart livelihood industries are one of Linear's key focus areas. In recent years, China's cattle inventory and slaughter numbers have maintained growth momentum, representing a massive market. Combining data intelligence with industry mechanism models, Yimu Technology has built a one-stop smart service platform for farms, helping increase milk yield by over 10% and reduce costs by roughly 10%, currently serving millions of dairy and beef cattle. Founder Zhifen Ma studied under Jizhou Ren, the founding father of modern Chinese grassland science, and has decades of research and management experience in grassland and livestock industries — the best team we've seen in this direction. Linear is glad to support the company at the earliest stage and accompany its long-term development."

About Linear Capital

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Linear Capital is an early-stage investment institution focused on "frontier technology plus industry" — that is, frontier technologies represented by data intelligence, digital new infrastructure, next-generation robotics, and new technology transformations in traditional domains (such as biomedicine, materials, energy), applied across vertical industries to substantially improve industrial efficiency, empower solutions to pain points, and complete industrial upgrading — achieving excess returns through substantial increases in industrial value. It currently manages ten funds with total AUM of approximately $2 billion.

Our investment stage focuses on leading angel to Series A rounds, with typical check sizes of $3–8 million or RMB equivalent.

To date, we have made early-stage investments in over 120 startup teams including Horizon Robotics, Kujiale, Sensors Data, Tezign, Rokid, Guandata, Agile Robots, and others. The combined valuation of Linear's portfolio companies is approximately $20 billion.

In the near term, Linear Capital is working to become the best "Data Intelligence Technology Fund." In the long term, it aims to build the most influential "Frontier Technology Application Fund."