(Yicai Global) Oct. 13 -- Cleaning robot firm Ningbo Sawadika Electrical Appliance Ltd. (SWDK) has pooled tens of million yuan in Round-A financing, 36kr.com reported.

Founded in 2013, the company deals in research and development, manufacturing, marketing, and services, with smart cleaning appliances as its major business and mopping robots as its mainstay products.

The Chinese style of cooking, which favors stir frying, tends to produce problems with oil stains, the company said. The group focuses on small deep-cleaning mopping appliances accordingly. SWDK released its first mopping bot in October 2014. It was initially popular in Japan, South Korea, Europe and America. The company homed in on China in early 2015.

It raised more than USD1.5 million (CNY10 million) in crowdfunding for its wireless hand-held mopping machine last year. Equipped with a water-spraying system that the company developed independently as well as a built-in 2,000-milliamp-hour battery, it mimics the movements human beings make when mopping a floor by hand. The machine can run for 50 minutes continuously on a single charge.

The company said that R&D is coming to a close for its automatic mopping robot that can deep-clean floors. The bot can plan cleaning routes using an autonomous navigation and positioning system.

Europe and America have mature markets for small cleaning appliances and up to 90 percent of their households have vacuum cleaners. Asian countries have become vital emerging markets because of their large population base and rapid economic growth, and the market for mopping robots is still developing.