In January 2026, FIVEAGES was named a “Core Ecosystem Associate” of Unitree Robotics. In B2B and industrial situations, FIVEAGES presently serves because the mannequin supplier—the “mind”—for Unitree’s robots.
The corporate not too long ago accomplished consecutive Pre-A and Pre-A+ funding rounds inside one month, elevating a number of hundred million RMB in whole. The Pre-A spherical was led by Sequoia China, with participation from Oriental Fortune Capital. The Pre-A+ spherical was collectively led by Xinneng Enterprise Capital and Youshan Capital, with follow-on funding from Tsingkong Jinxin.
Founder and CEO Liu Nianfeng believes the fundraising momentum displays a broader shift in how buyers consider robotics startups.
“Final 12 months, buyers favored grand narratives about general-purpose embodied intelligence—robots that might transfer containers, tidy tables, and fold garments,” Liu stated. “Now they care extra about whether or not you’ll be able to penetrate a vertical business, win repeat clients, and show commercialization functionality. That’s additionally key to constructing a knowledge flywheel to beat the shortage of real-world robotic information.”
The collaboration between FIVEAGES and Unitree represents a sensible division of labor between “physique” and “mind.” Since 2025, the 2 sides have labored collectively on pilot tasks in energy inspection and industrial environments.
Past supplying AI fashions to Unitree, FIVEAGES additionally delivers full-stack robotic options on to enterprise shoppers. At its Beijing workplace, the corporate showcased a custom-made crimson robotic developed for a significant state-owned enterprise. The robotic will quickly be deployed in retail shops for merchandise gross sales and is predicted to broaden into fuel stations for automated refueling. Further inspection and logistics-handling tasks are additionally underway.
Based in September 2024, FIVEAGES secured main shoppers reminiscent of Unitree inside simply over a 12 months. In response to Liu, profitable orders is much less difficult than delivering reliably at scale. “Giant contracts require competing via a number of POC rounds, passing strict assessments on reliability, robustness, and stability. Solely those that really carry out stay.”
He famous that whereas many embodied AI firms declare to have entered real-world situations, few can execute constantly. For instance, robots tasked with transferring materials containers in factories typically fail when lighting adjustments or field appearances differ.
FIVEAGES attributes its efficiency to its technical staff. Core algorithm members come from the Institute of Automation on the Chinese language Academy of Sciences. Along with Liu, co-founder and algorithm director Liu Jing and younger chief scientist Huang Yan have been PhD college students of academician Tan Tieniu, specializing in AI and multimodal intelligence, with prior expertise at Microsoft and Huawei. Co-founder Cao Enhua beforehand labored as an algorithm professional at Alibaba DAMO Academy.
The corporate’s proprietary few-shot embodied manipulation basis mannequin, the FAM collection, makes use of “secondary pre-training” and “heatmap alignment” methods to concentrate on key native options throughout activity execution. For instance, when transferring a field, the robotic prioritizes detecting the deal with reasonably than memorizing variations in field coloration or situation.
In response to Liu, this strategy allows robots to study new duties with as few as three to 5 real-world demonstrations, attaining as much as a 97% success charge on baseline duties.
On the {hardware} facet, FIVEAGES advantages from help by a staff from Tsinghua College. Lengthy-tenured professor Solar Fuchun serves as co-founder and chief scientist, offering experience in robotics {hardware} and movement management techniques.
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