(Yicai) Sept. 17 -- D-Robotics, a Chinese robotics chip startup spun off from autonomous-driving chipmaker Horizon Robotics, has secured USD400 million in its latest funding round led by South Korean investment firm Mirae Asset Management. The proceeds will be used to strengthen its chip and software businesses and support the development of the robotics industry.

Other participants in the Series C round included Chinese on-demand services giant Meituan as well as several government-backed investment platforms and leading investment institutions, Shenzhen-based D-Robotics said today.

More than 10 shareholders of the firm including Hillhouse Group-backed GL Ventures, 5Y Capital and Linear Capital also increased their investments in this round, the firm added.

The proceeds will be used to expand the full range of computing capabilities offered by D-Robotics’ core Sunrise intelligent computing chips and build a software platform covering data collection, model training, simulation and validation as well as inference deployment to meet the development needs of the robotics industry across a range of scenarios, D-Robotics said.

D-Robotics was formerly the robotics division of Horizon Robotics before being spun off as an independent company in January 2024 to focus on the development of robotics chips. The firm has since launched three mass-produced chips, namely Sunrise 3, Sunrise 5 and Sunrise S600, along with supporting software and hardware products for robot development.

D-Robotics’ revenue jumped several times in the first half compared to the same period last year, while cumulative shipments of its Sunrise chips exceeded 8 million units, the company said. Since its launch in November last year, the Sunrise S600 has been adopted by over 20 robot manufacturers, including Tars Robot, Spirit AI and X Square, it added.

D-Robotics had completed two rounds of financing before this round, raising USD270 million in a Series B round in April and USD100 million in a Series A round in May last year.

Editor: Kim Taylor