Five Years Later, Revisiting Agile Robots' Munich Headquarters: From a Handful of People to Systematic Product Development and Industrial Deployment

Five years ago, after learning about Agile Robots and conducting thorough due diligence, the Linear Capital investment team immediately flew to Munich to meet the founding team, fresh from leaving the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to start their venture. They talked technology, they talked future. Agile's products, technology, and founding team left a deep impression on us. On the way back to Shanghai, the team held an investment committee meeting right at the airport and decided to bet on Agile Robots as angel investors.

In the years that followed, Agile Robots experienced the rapid growth typical of a startup, expanding from a team of a few people to a unicorn in the robotics space. Linear Capital, as the earliest institutional investor, has accompanied and supported them throughout. This January, Linear held the first stop of its Linear Open House at Agile's Beijing office, where portfolio companies visited and exchanged ideas with the team.

(Linear Capital founding partner and CEO Harry Wang with Agile Robots founder and CEO Zhaopeng Chen)

For Linear, however, Agile's Munich office holds special significance as the starting point where the two teams first connected, colored by the emotional bond of having grown alongside each other. With travel resuming this year, when we planned a trip to Europe to exchange ideas with academia and industry on frontier technology developments, Agile Robots' Munich headquarters became the first confirmed stop on Linear Capital's European tour and the centerpiece of our Munich visit.

Due to a flight delay, our team didn't arrive in Munich until midnight, but founder Zhaopeng Chen personally came to pick us up. The founding team and executives at Agile's Munich headquarters — regardless of race or background — all insisted on waiting for us. When we finally met in the early hours, the two teams went out for hot pot together, then talked until three in the morning. During dinner, Agile Robots core founding member Peter Meusel said: "Harry and the team picked us from DLR and the rest is history." (DLR is the abbreviation for the German Aerospace Center)

(Linear team arriving in Munich and having dinner with the Agile team)

Five years. Agile Robots, this company, its Munich headquarters — from the 6 or 7 people we first met to around 200 today, with dual headquarters established in Munich and Beijing. From the angel round through subsequent A, B, C, and D rounds, Linear Capital led or participated in 7 rounds of investment, also happily serving as their free financial advisor to introduce other investors. On the product side, from single-point force sensing capabilities to information transmission and decision control, product capabilities have evolved from point to line to plane, achieving systematic and structural upgrades. In applications, Agile has developed robot operating systems, intelligent force-controlled robots, algorithm platforms, and autonomous decision-making functions, deploying thousands of intelligent robots across consumer electronics, automotive, medical, and agricultural sectors. In these fields, Agile's robots have already replaced human labor at scale for delicate assembly processes. On the team side, we've also witnessed founder Zhaopeng Chen's transformation from scientist to tech entrepreneur — from focusing on frontier technology to managing the company with both vision and pragmatism, planning for the future.

Agile Robots Munich headquarters

Linear Capital investment team with Agile Robots founder and CEO Zhaopeng Chen

What moved and struck our team was that for Agile, the future the founding team envisioned when they first met us five years ago has now been realized, stage by stage. For Linear, we watched a small team of a few people, possessing frontier force control and force sensing technology, combine with domestic engineering and mass production capabilities to drive technology-enabled industrial upgrading onto the global stage. This is exactly what we, as an investment firm that believes technology is the primary productive force and encourages entrepreneurs to commercialize technology and productize products, most hope to see.

PS: After visiting Agile Robots' Munich headquarters, we went to Hanover to tour the industrial exhibition, where we also saw some interesting innovative applications. Next we'll be heading to Zurich, Switzerland (local time April 21), Grenoble, France (local time April 24), and Genoa, Italy (local time April 26). We've received inquiries from friends about specific event details — thank you all for the support and interest. Those interested in attending, please scan the QR code to fill out the form. Due to limited venue space, we will contact and coordinate participation directly based on registrations.

About Linear Capital

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Linear Capital is an early-stage investment firm focused on "frontier technology + industry" — that is, frontier technologies represented by data intelligence, digital new infrastructure, next-generation robotics, and new technological 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. Through substantial increases in industrial value, we achieve excess returns in commercial value. We currently manage ten funds with total assets under management of approximately $2 billion.

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

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

In the near term, Linear Capital is working to become the premier "Data Intelligence Technology Fund," and in the long term, to build the most influential "Frontier Technology Application Fund."