Standardized Products，Customized Projects, SEER has raised RMB hundreds of millions in Series B funding round

「SEER」, a one-stop solution provider for intelligent manufacturing and smart logistics, has raised RMB hundreds of millions in Series B funding round. This round of funding comes from SAIF Partners, IDG Capital, and Broadstream Capital; with Scheme Capital acted as the exclusive financial adviser. The funds will be mainly used for the R&D team construction and the overseas market development. Only one year ago, SEER Intelligent raised Series A funding from several strategic investors such as GLP Hidden Hill Capital, Ecovacs, China Growth Capital, Harmontronics Automation, Silicon Valley Huiyin, IDG and etc.

Though the industrial automation industry is extremely hot, homogenization is more obvious in the case of factory mobile robots. SEER Intelligent has cut into the new direction of industrial mobile robots relying on its controller and software system. Specifically, SEER products mainly fall into two categories.

One category is the SRC series core controller, which provides the mobile robot with core functions such as map building, localization & navigation, model editing, and so on. According to Zhao Yue, CEO of SEER Intelligent, the core advantage of this series of controllers lies in its high adaptability to various accessories. SRC2000 series can match almost all lidars, servo drivers, sensors and other accessories on the market. Secondly, the implementing scenes are rich, with dozens of built-in scenes, and are suitable for a variety of vehicle models such as double steering wheels, forklift, omni-directional wheel, tracked robot, etc. In addition, SRC800 series can control the infrastructure of intelligent factories, including automatic charging piles, automatic doors, elevators, traffic lights, RGVs, lifters, stackers, etc.

"When customers adopt our controller to manufacture robots, they can choose accessories according to their own needs. Regarding application scenarios, they can also directly use our existing scenes, therefore supporting the non-standard solutions with standardized products." 

The other category is the digital software system, which mainly includes the RDS unified resource scheduling system, the MWMS warehousing & logistics management system, the RoboView visual AI solution and the Meta-V digital visualization system. The RDS unified resource scheduling system can provide users with a low-code process engine, which defines robot or equipment tasks in the form of low code and graphically displays the task process.

The RoboView visual AI solution is based on a machine vision algorithm, which quickly constructs a vision algorithm workflow that is easy to deploy and can solve practical problems, and provides visual AI solutions covering production, safety, management and many other processes. This operation is to add a camera to the plant, which provides a new vision for mobile robots and establishes a coordination between the vehicles and the plant.

“The visual AI can guide the robot to carry out production-related tasks such as loading & unloading, sorting & picking, handling, stacking, etc; and can identify the bin status according to the information collected by the camera, comprehensively managing the bin location, personnel and AMR. In addition, to ensure safe production, it can also realize the functions of vision-guided obstacle avoidance, foreign object intrusion monitoring and so on.” Zhao Yue says.

In Zhao's view, the core advantages of SEER Intelligent are more embodied in the efficiency and implementing scenes. In terms of efficiency, the built-in functions of the core controller can meet the needs of most users and realize the rapid delivery of products. In addition, SEER Intelligent has accumulated a complete set of standardized automatic forklift transformation processes and specifications, which have improved the efficiency of vehicle body building.

"The competition between mobile robots in the future is more about the comprehension of customer’s application scenarios." Zhao Yue believes. Up to now, together with more than 500 integrators and vehicle body manufacturers, SEER Intelligent has delivered and served more than 1300 projects in 3C electronics, semiconductors, lithium batteries, automobiles, new materials and other fields. The company has adapted its controller to most vehicle bodies on the market and accumulated solutions for a large number of application scenarios.

In terms of the team, Zhao Yue, the founder and CEO, has led the team to win the RoboCup World Cup many times. Most of the core team members come from Zhejiang University and Tongji University, and also from the RoboCup champion teams, who have rich technical experience in the field of robotics.

As an investor in this round, Li Jia, a partner from SAIF Partners, believes that: "With the urgent demand of upgrading in the domestic manufacturing industry, industrial robots have ushered in greater opportunities of growth. For mobile robots, industrial application scenarios are broad and the technical threshold is high. Under the industrial scenarios, factors such as non-standard product lines, diversified tasks and multifarious plant environment all lead to a higher threshold for mobile robots and a greater demand for non-standard solutions. SEER’s advantage is that it can support non-standard application scenarios with standardized products. By incorporating all functions in its standardized core controller and system software, it can realize rapid deployment and large-scale application. We think better of SEER’s strategic roadmap, which is mainly reflected in the establishment of a control platform based on its core controller, as well as the accumulation of advantageous vehicle bodies, scenes and other data from various equipment manufacturers in the ecosystem. They can reversely integrate the products made by manufacturers and integrators in the ecosystem, provide matrix vehicle body solutions to terminal manufacturing customers, and create an integrated control platform."

IDG Capital believes that: "In the future, AGV will become the more widely used tool within various scenarios, and the industry in which SEER Intelligent is located has broad market prospects. By satisfying the needs of non-standard projects with standardized products, SEER Intelligent can now realize the control of industrial logistics equipment of different categories and brands. At the same time, it can provide digital management tools which directly improve customers' efficiency in the management of employees, machines, materials, methods and environment involved in on-site logistics. In addition, we also think highly of SEER's efficient team which has a high execution power. We look forward to SEER's brilliant achievements in the future."

Wang Xi, a partner from Broadstream Capital, believes that: “Under the macro background of industrial upgrading, intelligent manufacturing has brought a broader market space for mobile robots. In the face of industrial logistics scenarios, the downstream application scenarios are more non-standard. Currently, most enterprises are providing customized services. By building controllers into standardized products to meet the non-standard needs of customers, we believe that SEER Intelligent also has the ability to realize platformization in the future. At the same time, about the software system, the zero-code development is also more in line with the users’ demands. At this stage, who can master the application scenarios faster also means who is more prone to win. We are optimistic about SEER’s advantages on this aspect, as well as the technical background of the team and the experience accumulated in this industry for many years."