Rotex Secures Tens of Millions in Series A Funding to Advance Productization of Flexible Bioelectronics

2022Year1June 13On [date], RouDian XinYun (Zhuhai) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Rotex”), announcing the completion of tens of millions of yuanAround of financing. This round was led by Yahui Investment, with participation from Hillhouse Investment, Hainan Mangao, and Hailai Xinchuang. Probe Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor. The proceeds will be primarily used for the development of innovative products based on flexible bioelectronic technology, the expansion and addition of medical-grade and non-medical-grade production capacity, and advancing multiple aesthetic medicine products currently under development into product registration and clinical trials. Previously,RotexIt has subsequently secured early-stage investments led by Heli Investment and Qirong Venture Capital, with participation from institutions such as Shanghai Aisi Investment, Hengqin Jin Tou, and Shenzhen Taiji Investment, accumulating over RMB 100 million in fundraising.

Rotex, established in 2015, boasts an interdisciplinary team of top-tier scientists from the fields of materials science, electronics, mechanics, and biomedicine. Its core flexible bioelectronic skin technology can be widely applied in various domains, including transdermal drug delivery, surface physical therapy, flexible electronic implants, bioelectrical signal sensing, and flexible mechanical signal sensing.

Over the past six years, Rotex has leveraged the scientific research resources of the National Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials, a top-10 global institution in the field of biomaterials, to successfully launch multiple products based on flexible bioelectronic technology. The company has achieved low-cost, large-scale mass production and validated commercial market viability. Its independently developed titanium electronic skin solutions for aesthetic applications have received widespread acclaim through collaborations with numerous brand partners. Currently, Rotex is actively advancing the product translation of flexible bioelectronic technology into both medical-grade and non-medical-grade applications, such as home beauty devices and menstrual pain management solutions.

Lin Sibo, Investment Director at Yahui Investment, stated: “Rotex is an industry-leading R&D enterprise specializing in bio-flexible materials. Leveraging the scientific achievements of top-tier materials scientists and combining them with the company’s outstanding engineering and R&D capabilities, Rotex has developed a robust pipeline of medical-grade and consumer-grade flexible products. We remain optimistic about the company’s continued breakthroughs in the frontier of flexible medical materials, as it consistently develops globally innovative key components and solutions in critical fields such as electrophysiology and electric field therapy, thereby providing significant impetus for Chinese intelligent manufacturing to expand into the global market.”

Flexible electronic technology involves fabricating electronic devices on flexible or stretchable substrates, such as plastics and thin metal foils, enabling materials that can be bent, folded, twisted, compressed, stretched, or deformed into arbitrary shapes to maintain their optoelectronic performance, reliability, and integration. In a sense, flexible electronics represents a wholly new revolution in electronic technology, which has attracted widespread global attention and experienced rapid development. In 2000, the American journal Science listed advances in organic electronics as one of the world’s top ten scientific and technological achievements, ranking alongside major breakthroughs such as the draft human genome sequence and cloning technologies. That same year, American scientists Alan J. Heeger and Alan G. MacDiarmid, along with Japanese scientist Hideki Shirakawa, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their pioneering work in the field of conductive polymers.

With continuous breakthroughs in conductive polymer research and ongoing optimization of flexible electronic manufacturing processes, this emerging technology has demonstrated broad application prospects across multiple sectors, including information technology, energy, healthcare, and national defense, significantly expanding the scope of electronic technologies. Currently, the primary application scenarios for flexible electronics include flexible electronic displays, thin-film solar panels, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and electronic skin.

Electronic skin, or flexible bioelectronics, has emerged as a popular application in recent years due to its ability to achieve perfect compatibility between electronic devices and human tissues. For instance, in robotics, electronic skin integrates various sensors and conductors to convert external mechanical or thermal stimuli into electrical signals, which are then transmitted to the robot’s computer for signal processing. Furthermore, when combined with transdermal drug delivery technology, electronic skin expands the contact area between drugs and human skin while minimizing relative displacement, thereby enhancing delivery efficiency and reducing risks such as allergies and burns associated with prolonged contact from rigid delivery devices. Studies have shown that transdermal drug delivery via electronic skin can increase permeability by nearly 100-fold.

Typically, the basic structure of flexible electronics comprises electronic components, flexible substrates, cross-linked conductors, and adhesive layers. Among these, the flexible substrate is the most distinctive module in flexible electronics technology and presents significant R&D challenges. It possesses the insulation properties and high strength of traditional rigid substrates, while also offering unique flexibility and thin-film characteristics. For instance, electronic skin often utilizes highly flexible silicone resins compressed to micron-level thicknesses; although referred to as substrates, they are effectively thin films in terms of dimensions. Existing materials often fail to simultaneously meet requirements for flexibility, electrical properties, fatigue resistance in specific scenarios, and biocompatibility. The development of new flexible substrate materials involves multidisciplinary integration across mechanics, materials science, physics, chemistry, and electronics. It demands precise understanding of the physicochemical properties of each material, and even their molecular structures, placing extremely high demands on the comprehensive capabilities of R&D teams. This, to some extent, limits the broader practical application and commercialization of flexible electronics technology.

As a pioneer in the application and commercialization of flexible bioelectronics in China, Rotex has leveraged electronic skin technology to develop a comprehensive portfolio of product solutions in transdermal drug delivery, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), flexible stress/pressure sensing, physiological electrical signal sensing, and intelligent microfluidic detection. The company also plans to advance applied research on brain-computer neural interfaces.

Rotex’s electronic skin is only 1/100th the diameter of a human hair and achieves 1/60th the softness of human skin, while its electrical conductivity is 1,000 times higher than that of existing flexible electrode materials. Furthermore, it is made from implantable titanium certified by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). Currently, transdermal drug delivery represents Rotex’s most mature area of development and application. Specifically, Rotex’s solution assists end-product developers in delivering active ingredients into the dermis via an electric field, while simultaneously stimulating collagen regeneration. Professional laboratory skin testing instruments have demonstrated that this solution significantly improves static wrinkles such as dry lines and fine lines, as well as skin smoothness and fullness, when used in conjunction with corresponding cosmetic products.

Furthermore, the transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) system is primarily used for non-pharmacological postoperative pain management. By integrating electronic skin with artificial intelligence technology, it effectively suppresses pain through controlled variable-frequency pulses, allowing patients to manage pain suppression protocols via a mobile app. Compared with pharmaceutical interventions, this solution offers significant advantages, including immediate onset of action, absence of side effects, no delayed reactions, and no risk of drug dependence. Flexible, stretchable pressure sensor arrays are incorporated into mattresses specifically designed for long-term bedridden patients. This solution dynamically monitors pressure distribution across the body; based on pressure patterns and predefined thresholds, it adjusts load-bearing via a pneumatic system to prevent pressure ulcers. In the realm of bioelectrical sensing, Rotex has developed wearable devices capable of continuously collecting various human bioelectric signals, including ECG (electrocardiogram), EEG (electroencephalogram), EMG (electromyogram), and EOG (electrooculogram). Compared with traditional equipment, these electronic skin-based solutions are thinner, softer, more comfortable to wear, consume less power, exhibit minimal interference, and provide stable, high-quality dynamic data, facilitating long-term use. Microfluidic intelligent detection technology is mainly applied in diapers, achieving over 90% accuracy in distinguishing between urine and feces, counting bowel movements, and providing real-time alerts, all at a low cost.

In the future, Rotex will leverage its original R&D capabilities in the field of flexible bioelectronics and its extensive system for translating scientific achievements into practical applications to deploy this disruptive technology across a broader range of scenarios, continuously delivering more efficient solutions. Specifically, Rotex has prioritized brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) as the focus of its next-stage product development. The company plans to develop brain-neural interfaces based on flexible bioelectronics. By integrating electronic skin sensor systems into smart prosthetics, external stimuli such as temperature and touch will be converted into electronic signals and fed back to the BCI. This will enable the device to perceive external environments and achieve flexible control of the prosthetic through the brain-neural interface.

Yahui Investment is a specialized investment fund focused on the frontiers of life sciences. Its core management team hails from the investment and research divisions of China’s top financial institutions, bringing extensive expertise in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. Guided by a profound understanding of scientific research and portfolio management, Yahui Investment has established a systematic investment strategy in cutting-edge life sciences, fostering industry-leading companies across multiple niche segments.

Probe Capital, established in 2017, is a boutique investment bank specializing in healthcare and life sciences. Its founding team hails from leading private equity firms, financial advisory institutions, management consulting companies, and vertical healthcare media outlets. Since its inception, Probe Capital has consistently completed double-digit private financing and M&A transactions annually, with cumulative transaction values approaching RMB 10 billion. The firm’s team also brings extensive industry expertise to corporate value-added services. In 2020, Probe New Healthcare Fund was launched and has since invested in multiple leading companies within the sector.