BioHandler Secures Nearly RMB 100 Million in Series A Funding Led by Hillhouse Capital and Bilinxing Ventures

In 2022, we have clearly observed a growing number of life sciences experts and industry investors turning their attention to fully automated and intelligent solutions. With significant capital and resources flowing into this space, this niche segment of the life sciences industry has finally stepped into the spotlight after years of development.

In July 2022, Shanghai HanZanDi Life Sciences announced the completion of its initial funding round, raising nearly RMB 100 million. The round was co-led by Proxima Ventures and Hillhouse Capital. Securing investment from two top-tier firms in its first financing round underscores their strong recognition of HanZanDi’s value.

Founded in 2020, Hanzandi is dedicated to the research, development, and manufacturing of core standalone instruments addressing critical technological bottlenecks in the life sciences sector, as well as the development of fully automated systems for diverse application scenarios. The company provides end-to-end automation, intelligence, and digitalization solutions for the life sciences industry, ranging from workflow automation at simple workstations to fully automated solutions capable of handling complex steps in large-scale system applications.

To date, Hanzandi has designed and implemented six major solution platforms.(High-throughput automated synthetic biology screening and detection platform solutions; High-throughput protein drug discovery and screening platform solutions; High-throughput automated small-molecule drug screening platform solutions; High-throughput automated microbial screening platform solutions; Ultra-high-throughput viral nucleic acid extraction and detection platform solutions; Fully automated enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) platform solutions), and achieved breakthrough progress in the core standalone equipment segment for “domestic substitution”(CANTUS Screen High-Throughput Liquid Handling Workstation; CANTUS Flex Flexible Multi-Channel Liquid Handling Workstation; NEMO Full-Function Liquid Handling Workstation; VOLA Series Nucleic Acid Extractor; ARCO Series High-Precision Microliter Dispenser; NEMO E4/E9 Liquid Handling Workstation), with continuous updates and iterations of products and systemsWidely applied in molecular diagnostics, clinical testing, small- and large-molecule drug screening, cell line development, and molecular screeningand other life science application fields.

Behind the capital’s favor and rapid market expansion lies HanZandi team’s in-depth exploration rooted in the industry for five years. This journey reflects the founding team’s rational judgment, as well as continuous technological and product iterations.

Hanzandi is a member enterprise of Wodi Intelligent Equipment, one of the first domestic manufacturers of industrial robots. It originated from Wodi Intelligent’s Smart Biological Equipment Division established in 2017. In 2020, after three years of incubation, Hanzandi was officially listed and established, focusing on full-process intelligent solutions in the life sciences sector.

Wodi Intelligence is one of the industry leaders in intelligent manufacturing system engineering for industrial robots in China. It has established a mature methodology covering the R&D and design, production, installation and commissioning, technical training, and after-sales service of industrial automation and industrial robots. Wodi Intelligence operates three major business segments: Intelligent Food Solutions, Intelligent Robotic Packaging, and Intelligent Biotechnology. It has served over 2,000 clients, including industry-leading enterprises such as Moutai, Lao Gan Ma, and Haitian Soy Sauce.

Hanzandi inherits Wodi Intelligence’s engineering expertise in large-scale automation projects within the high-end manufacturing sector, along with its foundational industrial robot technologies, application experience, rapid and stable delivery capabilities, and project implementation and service management strengths. Boasting inherent “intelligent manufacturing DNA,” Hanzandi is truly born with a “silver spoon.” Zhao Jibin, founder of Hanzandi, stated that the company will engage scientists using a unified language of life sciences, accurately translating and converting their needs, and strives to “become the leader in intelligent solutions for the entire lifecycle of life sciences.”

In the field of life sciences automation, a core team with interdisciplinary backgrounds is a key element of an “attractive investment target” in the eyes of investors.One reason for the investments by Proxima and Hillhouse is Hanzandi’s international team, which boasts a combined expertise in life sciences product R&D, digital software architecture, automation engineering, and advanced industrial smart manufacturing.

In 1996, Zhao Jibin moved to Shanghai after completing his master’s degree in Food Engineering at Huazhong Agricultural University. Drawing on external best practices during his two and a half years of work experience, he integrated diverse cultural elements and proposed the business philosophy of “German-style technology, Japanese-style management, and Chinese-style humanism.” In 1999, he resigned to found Wodi Intelligence.

The corporate culture of “adaptability, gradual progress, and learning agility” he advocated has driven Wodi Intelligence’s transformation and development. It also served as one of the foundational factors enabling Hanzandi to be incubated in 2017 and to independently “assume a leading role” in 2020. With over two decades of experience, Wodi Intelligence has provided empirical empowerment and talent support, becoming a stable cornerstone for the construction of the Hanzandi team.

“Hanzandi focuses on the full-process intelligentization in the field of life sciences and places great emphasis on the recruitment and cultivation of talent in this sector.” Led by Zhao Jibin,The core team members of Hanzandi possess over a decade of experience in the research and development of life science products, along with a strong background in biology., adept at “leveraging engineering thinking to uncover scientists’ needs,” and at encoding, transcribing, translating, and expressing life science processes, thereby building a bridge for seamless dialogue between biological scientists and automation engineers.

A global perspective is also a hallmark of the Hanzandi team.In the life sciences sector, companies must gain deep insights into global technological advancements and the competitive product landscape to iterate on product designs, ensuring they remain synchronized with—or even ahead of—international standards. This requires teams to possess a strong global perspective. Within Hanzandi’s core team, the majority of members bring years of experience working in multinational corporations.

“Life science automation is a highly interdisciplinary field that requires talent who truly understand scientists’ workflows and are well-versed in application scenarios,” shared Cheng Xiaowei, Vice President of Hanze Di. “Hanze Di actively incorporates insights from scientists and key opinion leader (KOL) customers, including their industry understanding and product feedback, to inform and enhance the research, development, and application of our products and systems.”

A robust modular foundation, coupled with the rapid integration of these modules based on specific requirements, is key to automation development. To this end, HanZanDi has applied “first principles and structured thinking” to its product research and development processes, leveraging the diverse strengths of its team.

“Hanzandi deconstructs the laboratory workflows in specialized segments of the life sciences industry with meticulous precision, breaking down”Testing and Inspection or Drug R&D“All experimental procedures involved in the process are broken down into granular functional modules and standardized in the form of programmer code, enabling different applications to call them on demand and combine them freely and flexibly,” explained Cheng Xiaowei.

Specifically, Hanzandi divides the life science experimental process into seven major stages: foundational innovation, design and implementation, task decomposition, core standalone equipment, application methods, core applications, and research fields. Each stage is then further refined; for instance, the “application methods” stage is broken down into more than ten modules, including DNA synthesis, cell culture, plasmid construction, library construction, and library screening.

For example, in the field of research, based on a comprehensive assessment of trends in the life sciences industry and leveraging its own advantageous resources, HanzandiSeven research areas have been identified: antibody drugs, synthetic biology, in vitro diagnostics, multi-omics, cell therapy, organoids, and brain science.

After gaining an in-depth understanding of the specific requirements for each laboratory application scenario, Hanzandi integrates hardware modules, software and hardware systems equipped with digital technologies such as AI and IoT, and laboratory consumables into a unified platform. This approach enables rapid response to the personalized needs of different customers, helping laboratories achieve greater efficiency, convenience, safety, and compliance during testing, inspection, and R&D processes, thereby reducing costs and enhancing operational efficiency.

Zhao Jibin outlined a 10-year long-term strategy for Hansoh Pharmaceutical, centered on foundational breakthroughs and original innovation. Adopting an “onion-peeling” approach, the strategy progresses from bottom-up innovation, design implementation, task decomposition, and core standalone equipment breakthroughs to application methodologies and core applications, ultimately focusing on seven research domains: antibody drugs, synthetic biology, in vitro diagnostics, multi-omics, cell therapy, organoids, and brain science.

Currently, HanZandi has established four major product systems: a core standalone batch production platform, an intelligent automation integration platform, a personalized OEM/ODM platform for instruments and systems, and a digital ecosystem platform. These capabilities enable the company to provide end-to-end, intelligent solutions for the life sciences and broader health industries.

In 2021, Hanzandi, which had been established for only one year, won the bid for a high-throughput automated protein drug discovery and screening project for a renowned laboratory in China.Hanzandi has fully adopted the company’s core standalone product, the automated liquid handling workstation, along with an intelligent end-to-end automation solution, significantly reducing customers’ operational costs and meeting their urgent needs for system delivery.

From negotiation to final delivery, Hanzandi completed a project workload originally estimated to take at least 10 months in less than six months, setting the fastest delivery record for a system of comparable scale in the industry and establishing the quickest delivery timeline for a large-scale integrated platform by a Chinese brand enterprise to date.

“In the life sciences sector, delivery capability is a key metric for evaluating a company. It not only requires timely product delivery but also the rapid realization of the platform’s initial functionalities post-delivery,” recalled Zhao Jibin. Leveraging its profound understanding of life sciences and tailoring personalized solutions to customer needs, HanZanDi completed equipment delivery in just over three months. The company spent only two months on on-site construction, software installation, single-unit commissioning, partial debugging, and overall system commissioning, thereby achieving early project completion.

BioHandler High-Throughput Drug Discovery and Screening Automation Platform

The Lighthouse Project, like a shining medal, has not only honed the team's capabilities but also attracted a steady influx of clients. "As flowers bloom, butterflies come." Currently,Hanzandi has achieved end-to-end intelligent technological accumulation across diverse scenarios at the molecular, cellular, and protein levels, from entry to exit.Compared with traditional laboratory systems, Hanzandi delivers higher efficiency and more stable experimental results, and has already been deployed among numerous KOL clients.

Furthermore,Leveraging the deep penetration of digital technologies such as AI and IoT across various sectors of healthcare, HanZanDi has introduced the BAIoT concept for the first time, integrating scenarios from the life sciences field.“B” stands for Biological. BAIoT aims to establish exclusive AI models and IoT systems in the field of life sciences from both the biological dimension and the physical logic dimension.

From a biological perspective, Hanzandi is pioneering breakthroughs in establishing comprehensive interaction formulas, computational models, and database architectures across multiple scales—from the molecular level of genetic engineering, through the cellular factory level of biological engineering, to the large-scale production level of biochemical engineering bioreactors. From a physical-logic perspective, Hanzandi leverages existing digital ecosystem technologies in the industrial sector, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), to bridge communication among life scientists, industrial engineers, and software architects.

In its future product roadmap, Hansumdi will also leverage its underlying BAIoT technology to build a comprehensive ecosystem for smart laboratories and intelligent automation across the entire life sciences industry chain.

Moving beyond the perspective of HanZanDi as a single enterprise and viewing the situation from the height of the laboratory automation industry, the localization of life science automation in China has become imperative. This is driven by the surge of innovation in the domestic life sciences sector, as well as challenges posed by the pandemic-related disruptions to overseas supply chains and concerns over product security. Therefore, the current stage presents a prime opportunity for high-quality domestic laboratory automation companies like HanZanDi to stand out, leveraging their comprehensive technical systems, robust product portfolios with strong iterative capabilities, and well-established commercial networks.

“Chase the wind and moon, do not linger; beyond the flat wasteland lie the spring mountains. When the mountain flowers are in full bloom, he smiles among them.”