Shihang Intelligent, a global marine embodied-robot company, announced on 15 June that it had closed a Series A round of more than RMB 1 billion, the largest single-round raise recorded in the global marine-robotics sector.
The round gathered a slate of industrial and mainstream investors: Shanghe Momentum Fund (the industrial arm of Moore Threads and Kunlunxin), Temasek’s Vertex Growth, CITIC’s agriculture fund, Yuzun Capital, the listed firm Oceanus, and returning backers GSR Ventures, Vertex China, HuaYing Capital, Changshi Capital and Shengjing Jiacheng, all of which oversubscribed at large ratios.
Proceeds will go mainly to core technology research, global market expansion and supply-chain ecosystem building, pushing marine robots into scaled use in complex underwater scenarios. The company had already raised several hundred million yuan multiple times, including three rounds within roughly four months of late 2025.
GSR Ventures is now a five-time backer, a vote of confidence rooted in its 3S test of market size, scalability and sustainability. Shihang fits the mould. China’s marine economy reached RMB 11,018 billion in 2025, up 5.5 per cent and 7.9 per cent of GDP, and traditional underwater work still leans on risky human divers plus imported gear, the exact pain point robots replace.
Founded in 2023, Shihang is led by Chen Xiaobo, a Harbin Engineering University alumnus with nearly 20 years in the field, dubbed by peers the first figure in marine embodied intelligence. The firm holds more than 300 intellectual-property rights and is the only company with full 0-to-10,000-metre ocean-depth, full-degree-of-freedom capability, built on six self-developed core systems spanning power, control, sensing, navigation, sealing and deployment.
Its Orca underwater robot costs one tenth of legacy equipment, runs at five times the efficiency and fifty times manual productivity; its SEAHIX is the world’s first 6,000-metre commercial deep-sea robot, with a 10,000-metre unit planned for the fourth quarter. The Pangxu thruster took 70 per cent of China’s market in 2025 and is targeting 90 per cent globally at over 10,000 units a year. In April the firm launched its Cangqiong CEORION marine embodied model covering 12 underwater task types, with simulation success above 90 per cent.
Commercial results are concrete. In the first half of 2026 alone Shihang booked over RMB 1 billion in orders and now serves 15 of the world’s 20 core ports, spanning ship cleaning, subsea security, offshore wind and marine ranching.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original OFweek Robot report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience.
Translated and adapted from OFweek Robot (https://robot.ofweek.com/2026-06/ART-8321204-8120-30690775.html).