ShiHang Intelligence Raises Record ¥1 Billion Series A
Marine embodied AI company ShiHang Intelligence announced on June 15 that it has completed a Series A funding round exceeding ¥1 billion (approximately $138 million), setting a new record as the largest single financing round in the global marine robotics industry.
Investor Lineup
The round attracted a diverse group of new and existing investors:
- Shanghe Dongliang Fund — the industrial investment arm of chip makers Moore Threads and KunlunCore
- Vertex Growth — Singapore's Temasek-backed venture capital platform
- CITIC Group's agriculture industry fund — China's largest agricultural investment fund
- Yuzun Capital
- Daya Electric — listed company
All existing investors including GSR Ventures (Zhu Xiaohu, now on his 5th investment), Vertex China, Huaying Capital, Changshi Capital, Shengjing Jiacheng Capital, and Anyu Capital significantly increased their investments.
What ShiHang Builds
Founded by Chen Xiaobo (born 1989, Harbin Engineering University alumnus), ShiHang Intelligence focuses on embodied AI for marine environments — one of the most technically challenging domains for robotics. The company has fully self-developed six core systems: propulsion, control, sensing, navigation, sealing, and deployment/recovery.
Key capabilities include:
- Full ocean depth operation (0 to 10,000 meters) with full 6-DOF freedom
- Killer Whale (虎鲸) robot — a general-purpose marine robot platform with platform + brain + module architecture
- Cangqiong CEORION — the marine embodied AI large model, launched in April 2026, using a unified end-to-end architecture integrating environment perception, task understanding, and action generation
- Over 1 million hours of commercial operation data used to train the marine world model
Commercial Traction
ShiHang's robots have already demonstrated strong real-world performance:
- Ship hull cleaning: 50x efficiency vs. human divers; a fully loaded freighter can be cleaned in 10 hours instead of 2 weeks. Already deployed at China Merchants Shipping and COSCO.
- Offshore solar inspection: Won bid for China National Nuclear Corporation's Tianwan Nuclear Power Station.
- Over ¥1 billion in orders secured in H1 2026 alone.
- Led creation of China's first underwater cleaning robot operation standard.
- Won China Navigation Society Science and Technology Progress First Prize 2025.
- Selected as the only Chinese company in Singapore's national underwater hull inspection program.
Industry Significance
GSR Ventures managing partner Zhu Xiaohu commented: "SpaceX redefined space; ShiHang is redefining the ocean with embodied AI. A ¥1 billion Series A is not the end, but the starting point for turning demonstrations into commercial deployment."
This round signals growing investor confidence that marine robotics — spanning ship maintenance, offshore energy, aquaculture, and underwater infrastructure — represents a massive untapped market where embodied AI can deliver tangible ROI.
