Yrobot Secures Over $10 Million in Series A Funding to Advance China's First Muscle Exosuit

VCBeat has learned that on April 22, Yrobot, the developer of China’s first exoskeleton for muscular assistance, announced the completion of its Series A financing round, exceeding USD 10 million. The round was co-led by Country Garden Ventures, Qiaobei Capital, and another leading industry player. Existing investors, including GL Ventures, Baidu Ventures, and Linear Capital, continued to increase their investments. Fanzhuo Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

Yuan Ye Technology stated, “Following this round of financing, the company will“Continue to deepen our focus on intelligent wearable medical devices for rehabilitation, allocating more resources and efforts to product development, underlying technology optimization, and team building, so as to accelerate the digitalization of rehabilitation equipment, the networking of data, and the personalization of treatment.”

Previously, in October 2020, Yuanye Technology secured Pre-A round financing from several renowned institutions, including Baidu Ventures, GL Ventures, Linear Capital, Qiaobei Capital, and Zhihui Jishi.

YuanYe Tech is an intelligent muscle exoskeleton company founded by a team of Ph.D. and master’s graduates from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Dedicated to developing exosuits designed to restore and enhance the wearer’s physical functions.

Dr. Ding Ye, CEO of YuanYe Tech, stated, “This round of financing proceeded quite smoothly, taking only five months from initiation to completion. We are deeply grateful for the investors’ recognition.”

Why Are Numerous Prominent Investment Institutions Bullish on Yuanye Technology? What Is Yuanye Technology’s Core Competitiveness? To Address These Questions, VCBeat Conducted Interviews with Both the Investment Firms and Yuanye Technology.

According to the "Report on Cardiovascular Health and Diseases in China 2019," there are approximately 13 million stroke patients in China, of whom 9 million suffer from lower limb impairments. The number of new cases is around 2 million annually. This large patient population has generated substantial unmet rehabilitation needs, creating a market opportunity valued at hundreds of billions of yuan.

During the rehabilitation process, stroke patients require extensive gait training to restore neuromuscular control. If rehabilitation is not undertaken during the critical recovery window, or if its efficacy is suboptimal, patients may develop disuse atrophy of the lower limbs and maladaptive compensatory movement patterns. These complications can severely impair activities of daily living, potentially leading to long-term dependence on caregivers. Therefore, the quality of rehabilitation training during both the critical recovery period and subsequent phases is paramount for stroke survivors. However, numerous challenges persist in current clinical rehabilitation practices.

For example, there is a scarcity of rehabilitation professionals, and stroke patients receive relatively short durations of training. According to the 2019 China Health and Health Statistical Yearbook released by the National Health Commission, China currently has 637 rehabilitation hospitals, with fewer than 20,000 professionals engaged in rehabilitation work, resulting in a shortage of at least 300,000 rehabilitation therapists. This shortage prevents therapists from providing prolonged care to individual patients, leading to insufficient training time for patients and ultimately compromising their rehabilitation outcomes.

To address the pain points in rehabilitation medicine, wearable robots represented by “exoskeleton robots” have emerged in the market, aiming to alleviate challenges such as the scarcity of rehabilitation therapists and low training efficiency. However, in terms of assisted walking, the bulky structure of exoskeleton robots and their high learning curve fail to provide patients with flexible mobility support. Patients are passively guided along predetermined motion trajectories at a slow pace, and such passive gait training yields only limited rehabilitative benefits.

Distinct from the technical philosophy of traditional exoskeleton robots,YuanYe Tech Team Develops the World's First More Flexible, Lighter, and Smarter Exoskeleton System，This system organically integrates artificial intelligence algorithms, robotics, flexible material design, and human biomechanics. By predicting motion intent through motion capture, it enables the exoskeleton to closely synchronize with body movements and provide real-time, on-demand assistance to corresponding joints, thereby enhancing the wearer’s mobility performance and helping them execute intended movements more stably, effortlessly, and accurately.

Currently, Yuanye Technology is engaged in in-depth collaboration with multiple Grade A tertiary hospitals in China in areas such as product development, clinical testing, and academic research, yielding numerous achievements.

YuanYe Tech stated, “The core concept of the Muscle Exoskeleton is to synergize with the human body, precisely assist target muscles, and aid limbs in executing voluntary movements.”

Specifically, YuanYe Tech’s self-developed muscle exoskeleton assists patients in performing precise, active rehabilitation gait training. By leveraging machine learning to analyze each patient’s gait, the system delivers the optimal level of assistance at the most appropriate time, continuously and proactively adjusting to the patient’s strength requirements throughout the process. This provides positive feedback and enables more effective active training, ultimately helping patients achieve independent, unassisted walking.

However, achieving the above goals requires collaborative efforts among experts from multiple disciplines, including artificial intelligence, sensors, robotics, flexible materials, and human biology.

Fortunately, YuanYe Tech achieved a breakthrough by leveraging its team’s expertise. By employing multi-sensor systems to capture patients’ body posture in real time, and utilizing technologies such as signal fusion and machine learning to predict their movement intentions, the company enables its exoskeleton suit to activate the powertrain with millisecond-level response at the very moment of movement, thereby assisting the target muscles.

Meanwhile, the system adjusts robotic assistance by leveraging a built-in movement posture model and real-time feedback of the patient’s body posture signals, thereby helping patients perform movements more effectively. The system also incorporates personalized algorithms that proactively learn and adjust the built-in movement models and assistance strategies based on individual gait patterns, delivering precise and tailored support to each patient. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, the MyoExoskeleton ultimately achieves its goal of facilitating active walking training for patients and enhancing rehabilitation outcomes.

YuanYe Tech stated, “The complete muscle exoskeleton system weighs no more than 3 kg. Patients with mild mobility impairments can don it independently within one minute and walk comfortably, even on their first use.” Its lightweight design enables patients to incorporate the muscle exoskeleton into daily life, significantly expanding the product’s range of applications, such as gait assistance for middle-aged and elderly individuals in everyday activities, mobility support for patients with lower-limb disabilities, and lower-limb rehabilitation training.

Overall, the rehabilitation market is vast and holds significant growth potential. YuanYe Technology has a substantial opportunity to become an industry leader by leveraging its innovation capabilities and its globally first-of-its-kind muscle exoskeleton.

As a joint lead investor in this financing round,Sun Lianghao, Head of the Healthcare Sector at Country Garden VenturesIndicates:“The health and wellness market represents a massive, rigid demand driven by future shifts in China’s demographic structure, with intelligent walking-assist robots emerging as a key trend in this sector. The AI-powered smart muscle exoskeleton developed by YuanYe Tech is significantly lighter than traditional rehabilitation robots, enabling genuine active training and proactive recovery for patients. Meanwhile, the increasing localization of upstream components is expected to substantially reduce manufacturing costs, paving the way for personalized muscle exoskeletons tailored to the broader consumer market. We maintain a long-term positive outlook on and support for the commercialization of YuanYe’s technological products, and we look forward to seeing its intelligent rehabilitation robots benefit patients and contribute to society at the earliest possible stage.”

Investor at Baidu VenturesIndicates:“Sports rehabilitation represents a massive, high-demand market of the future. Traditional sports rehabilitation products have low technical barriers and fail to adequately address personalized rehabilitation needs. The team at YuanYe Tech has pioneered an intelligent soft exoskeleton platform that enables precise dynamic motion capture and assistance, providing personalized, full-cycle rehabilitation treatment plans tailored to the clinical needs of diverse populations.BVWe remain long-term bullish on and supportive of the team’s efforts to deploy its technical products in this sector, and we look forward to the company’s intelligent rehabilitation products benefiting a broad population in the near future.”

Hua Lin, Partner at Qiaobei CapitalIndicates:“YuanYe Tech is primarily engaged in the research and development of soft exoskeleton wearable products, which differ significantly from the rigid exoskeleton products currently available on the market. The company holds a globally leading position in this field, serving a broader population while offering more affordable pricing, thereby better supporting rehabilitation patients. Led by founder Ding Ye, the technical team possesses extensive product development experience and an international perspective. Having completed the development of its product prototype, we are confident that, upon obtaining the relevant medical device licenses, the company will undoubtedly emerge as a leading enterprise in the field of wearable robotics.”

Country Garden Ventures, established in January 2019, is a first-tier business unit under Country Garden Group, responsible for the group’s equity investment activities excluding real estate investments. Adhering to the investment strategy of “industry empowerment and value co-creation,” Country Garden Ventures places equal emphasis on financial investments and controlling stakes, having initially formed a phased, sector-focused, and multi-layered investment portfolio. The firm continues to focus on investment sectors including the upstream and downstream industrial chains of real estate, big health, big consumption, logistics and supply chain, advanced manufacturing, and new infrastructure.

Qiaobei Capital is a private equity investment fund with an investment banking background, focusing on hard technology and the biomedical industry. Adhering to a boutique investment style, Qiaobei Capital advocates a comprehensive post-investment service philosophy. Leveraging 20 years of expertise and resources in investment banking, it fully supports and accompanies its portfolio companies in their growth, becoming a significant shareholder and long-term partner. To date, Qiaobei Capital’s invested projects include Quectel Wireless Solutions, Video++, Diejing Digital, Nengxun Semiconductor, Guangtong Tianxia, Yrobot, Yinhang Biologics, Xinwan Biologics, Obio Technology (Shanghai), Nearshore Protein, Epibiologics, Yiyi Co., Ltd., and Weineng Technology, among others.

GL Ventures is the venture capital fund under Hillhouse Capital that focuses on early-stage innovative companies, primarily investing in four key sectors: biopharmaceuticals and medical devices, software and hard tech, consumer internet and technology, and emerging consumer brands and services.

Linear Capital, established in September 2014, is a professional investment firm focused on Data Intelligence and frontier technologies. It prioritizes investments in Data Application, Data Infrastructure, and applications of frontier technologies. The firm maintains offices in Shanghai and Beijing. Its initial investment strategy primarily involves leading angel to Series A rounds, with continued support throughout the entire lifecycle to foster the growth of outstanding portfolio companies. To date, Linear Capital has invested in more than 80 startup teams, including Horizon Robotics, Tongdun, Kujiale, Sensors Data, Tezign, Rokid, Guandata, Spirit AI, and WM Motor, with the combined valuation of its portfolio companies reaching approximately $15 billion.

Baidu Ventures (BV) is an independent venture capital firm initiated by Baidu and managed by a professional team, with investors including Baidu and other leading industrial and financial institutions. BV currently manages three USD and RMB funds totaling $500 million, operating simultaneously in Beijing and San Francisco, with the aim of becoming a world-class VC in the AI era. Committed to building a more efficient intelligent world, BV has invested in over 100 AI companies.