Booster Robotics, a humanoid robot company, has successfully completed a new multi-million funding round, with Source Code Capital leading the investment.
Booster Robotics, a humanoid robot company, has successfully secured a multi-million RMB Pre-A round of funding, with Source Code Capital leading the investment and further participation from Tsinghua Innovation Ventures and GreenHarbor Investment. The funds from this round will be allocated towards small-scale production, market expansion, talent acquisition, and ongoing research and development. The company had previously concluded a multi-million RMB angel round of funding in October 2023.
Established in 2023, Booster Robotics focuses on providing stable humanoid robots and efficient development tools for developers, aiming to drive a productivity revolution in collaboration with global developers.
In a recent product demonstration by Booster Robotics, their humanoid robot BR002 showcased the ability to transition from a prone position to standing by folding its legs backward, akin to the standing method of Atlas, an electrically driven humanoid robot from the pioneering company Boston Dynamics. Compared to quadrupedal, avian, and simplified leg configurations, the motion control algorithm for humanoid leg configurations presents significant complexity but offers higher mobility capabilities. Booster Robotics' humanoid robot can perform lateral and vertical splits, exhibiting a wide range of motion, with joints capable of 360° rotation.
Founder of Booster Robotics, Cheng Hao, a graduate of Tsinghua University for both undergraduate and master's degrees, has a background deeply rooted in robotics research under the guidance of Professor Zhao Mingguo. During his time at Tsinghua, Cheng was a member of the university's robotic soccer team, accumulating extensive research and development experience in robotics. He stated that during the company's early development phase, the focus was on creating the "small brain" and the hardware body of humanoid robots. The current objective is to achieve mass production, establish a viable business model, and subsequently concentrate on the computational unit and the robot operating system. "Our current expertise lies in the hardware body and the 'small brain,' but I believe that in the future, the key barriers will not be the 'big brain,' 'small brain,' or the hardware body, but rather the operating system and the computational unit. Future robots must have their own computational unit, namely the SoC chip. Additionally, there will certainly be corresponding systems and development tools for robots in the future, enabling other developers to carry out secondary development on top of them."
Currently, Booster Robotics is entering the market through the "small brain" and the hardware body. In terms of motion control, the barriers to entry for humanoid motion control products are extremely high, involving a significant amount of physical and mathematical principles, complex motion control algorithms, scarce self-developed configurations, and challenges in forward development. The complexity of software engineering is also high, with significant challenges in decoupling and layered encapsulation.
It is understood that Booster Robotics plans to officially launch its humanoid robot product featuring a motion control algorithm development platform in the latter half of this year and commence small-scale production and sales.