As the humanoid robot competition enters its “second half,” the flow of capital has become exceptionally clear.
On February 24, INSPIRE ROBOTS, a benchmark enterprise in the domestic Dexterous Hand sector, officially announced the completion of C1 and C2 financing rounds, with a combined amount of hundreds of millions of RMB. If looking at the amount alone, this is already one of the most significant financing events in the core robotics components sector since 2025. However, what truly energized the industry is the “top-tier” investor lineup.
The C1 round was jointly led by China Mobile Chain Leader Fund and Shenzhen Capital Group, with Boyuan Capital, Fortis Capital, and Primavera Capital participating. The C2 round was led by Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, with Qiming Venture Partners, Boyuan Capital, Primavera Capital, Jinshi Digital Economy Fund, and TCL Venture Capital participating.
This lineup includes three government-backed funds (Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, Shenzhen Capital Group, Jinshi Digital Economy Fund), three industrial giants (China Mobile, TCL, Boyuan Capital participating in both rounds), and three top-tier market-oriented institutions (Qiming Venture Partners, Fortis Capital, Primavera Capital).
From the capital perspective, the entry of national team and industrial capital into core components is not merely financial investment, but rather a “resource consolidation” and focused breakthrough centered on The Dexterous Hand sector.
01. What is the Significance of the National Team’s Appearance?
The lead investment by Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund and Shenzhen Capital Group easily recalls President Xi Jinping’s high attention to robotic dexterous operation capabilities during his inspection in Beijing last year.
This is not coincidental. As a core layout direction of the hundred-billion-level high-tech industry fund, “Embodied AI” has been clearly listed as a key support area. And The Dexterous Hand happens to be the most direct execution terminal of Embodied AI.
The entry of two locally-led state-owned capitals represents the urgent demand at the national strategic level for independent and controllable core basic components of robotics, as well as a clear path to rapidly build an industrial ecosystem by empowering leading enterprises. This also means INSPIRE ROBOTS will receive a series of “national team” level empowerments including policy support, intelligent computing center resources, and training data integration.
The participation of Jinshi Digital Economy Fund focuses more on implementation granularity. As a fund with Shijingshan District state-owned enterprise background, its entry will promote INSPIRE’s landing in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei intelligent manufacturing industrial park, while providing support in areas such as Dexterous Hand data collection and digital twin applications.
The positioning of the three government-backed funds sends a clear signal: The Dexterous Hand is not only a commercial track but has risen to a “bottleneck” link that needs to be broken through at the national strategic level.
02. Why Are Industrial Giants Entering Now?
Besides the national team, the entry of industrial capital surprised many at first. But upon reflection, the hand is precisely the most reasonable entry point for robot implementation.
To achieve precise operation, The Dexterous Hand requires ultra-low latency real-time control, scenario data, and material information—all characteristics that industrial capital happens to possess.
For example, the low-latency characteristics of China Mobile’s 5G-A network can precisely solve the communication bottleneck between the robot’s “hand” and “brain.” In the future, when robots need to remotely execute fine tasks, China Mobile’s network capabilities will become the “neural pathway” for INSPIRE’s Dexterous Hand.
From this perspective, Bosch’s investment logic is also relatively clear. As a veteran player in global industrial automation, Bosch knows better than anyone the value of the “hand” in manufacturing scenarios. Boyuan Capital’s continuous participation in both rounds can be seen as resource import from behind Bosch’s OpenBosch open innovation platform. From industrial-grade reliability testing standards to overseas manufacturing scenario integration, to global supply chain consolidation, what Bosch can give INSPIRE is a set of industrialized mature logic verified over decades, thereby bringing more industrial cooperation value.
TCL Venture Capital’s entry points to the intersection of consumer electronics and intelligent manufacturing. Scenarios such as home appliance assembly and consumer electronics production lines have extremely high requirements for The Dexterous Hand’s precision and flexibility, which are also areas with high robot demand currently, where penetration rates based on domestic Dexterous Hand are expected to improve in the future. TCL brings not only capital but also production line-level implementation opportunities and technical synergy.
Three industrial giants, three different resource endowments, but pointing to the same conclusion: The Dexterous Hand has walked out of the laboratory and entered the deep water zone of industrialization.
03. Consensus of Market Frontline Institutions
The appearance of Qiming, Fortis, and Primavera—names of top-tier capital—on the same investment list is itself a consensus.
What they may value is “full-stack self-research plus ten-thousand-unit delivery.” Because in The Dexterous Hand field, many teams can make demos, but currently only INSPIRE ROBOTS can run through the supply chain and complete ten-thousand-level mass production.
Qiming Venture Partners’ investment logic focuses on core targets with “high technical barriers and great commercialization potential.” This follow-up investment in INSPIRE ROBOTS is expected to leverage its global investment vision to provide support in overseas market expansion, international technical cooperation, and high-end talent introduction, promoting INSPIRE’s Dexterous Hand global layout. These are precisely the next-level rigid demands of The Dexterous Hand.
Fortis Capital has remained in the top three of domestic venture capital for nearly 10 years, investing in numerous star enterprises in the intelligent manufacturing field and accumulating substantial industrial scenario resources. It was also the lead investor in INSPIRE’s B2 round. As a long-distance runner in domestic venture capital, betting again undoubtedly highlights its optimism about INSPIRE’s long-term prospects.
Primavera Capital, as global capital that invested in INSPIRE early on, once again participated in both rounds, indicating high recognition of INSPIRE’s long-term value growth.
Three top-tier institutions, three different empowerment paths, but pointing to the same judgment: The “full-stack self-research, scale delivery” model represented by INSPIRE ROBOTS has been confirmed by the capital market as a viable path to success, with the next step expected to move toward a farther global future.
04. Industrial Changes Behind Ten-Thousand-Unit Delivery
In 2025, INSPIRE ROBOTS’ annual Dexterous Hand delivery volume exceeded 10,000 units.
The significance of this number may be underestimated by many.
In the hardware track, 10,000 units is a critical point. Crossing this number means the supply chain system has run through, quality control processes are stable, and batch manufacturing capabilities have taken shape. The Dexterous Hand is no longer a “precision artwork” in the laboratory but an industrial product that can be stably supplied.
More importantly, these 10,000 units are not inventory lying in warehouses but real commercial delivery. From research institutions to industrial scenarios, from domestic markets to North America and Europe, INSPIRE’s Dexterous Hand has completed cross-scenario and cross-regional validation. At the 2026 Year of the Horse Spring Festival Gala, INSPIRE’s Dexterous Hand appeared in the sketch “Grandma’s Favorite,” with stable performance under high-frequency display scenarios, bringing the core capabilities of domestic Dexterous Hand into the view of hundreds of millions of viewers.
Behind this is INSPIRE ROBOTS’ ten years of technical accumulation.
Micro motors, planetary roller screws, reducers, sensors—these core upstream components are all self-developed and self-produced by INSPIRE. This is not “self-research for self-research’s sake” but achieving the best balance of performance, size, and power consumption from the bottom up. Salt spray testing, high and low-temperature testing, vibration testing, waterproof testing—针对 extreme working conditions in industrial scenarios, INSPIRE has precipitated a complete set of testing standards and process flows.
The result is that INSPIRE’s product matrix now covers the full spectrum from high-degree-of-freedom research needs to medium-degree-of-freedom mass production needs. Beyond linkage solutions, tendon rope and direct drive technical routes are being advanced simultaneously. This makes today’s INSPIRE ROBOTS walk farther than late-moving players through forward-looking coverage of diverse application scenarios.
05. An Industrial Revolution “From Hand to Body”
Returning to this financing.
The convergence of three capital paths ultimately points to three directions: technical research and development, delivery capabilities, and global markets.
Technical R&D corresponds to continuous iteration of Dexterous Hand performance. Delivery capabilities correspond to cost control’s scale effects. Global markets correspond to ecosystem expansion’s boundary breakthroughs.
National capital’s policy support, industrial capital’s technical and scenario resources, and frontline capital’s global capital operations—these叠加 resources are pushing a technology company to become a core node of the industrial ecosystem.
More worth considering is that the scaled maturity of The Dexterous Hand is unlocking the last shackle of the humanoid robot industry.
In the past, the biggest pain point of humanoid robots was the “hand.” Those capable of grasping were not flexible enough, those capable of fine operations were not reliable enough, and those capable of complex tasks were not cheap enough. Now, as players like INSPIRE ROBOTS cross the ten-thousand-unit threshold, having a pair of “dexterous hands” is changing from a luxurious dream into a plannable, purchasable standardized capability.
This means the development focus of humanoid robots is shifting from “whether it can move” to “whether it can work.” When the “hand” problem is gradually solved, the application boundaries of robots will expand from laboratories to factories, homes, and society.
This is the “from hand to body” industrial revolution. If the hand runs fast enough and strong enough, The Dexterous Hand will no longer be an appendage of robots but the core carrier of robot capabilities, thereby better driving the implementation of the entire industry.
INSPIRE ROBOTS’ C-round financing, rather than being a milestone for a single company, should be seen as a microcosm of the rise of China’s robotics core components industry.
In the deep water zone of hard technology, through long-termist technical persistence and deep vertical integration engineering innovation, Chinese enterprises have the capability to occupy key positions in the global industrial chain.
When millions of robots with dexterous operation capabilities enter thousands of industries, the financing, numbers, and lists we discuss today will all become the most solid footnotes of that era.
