An ocean embodied-intelligence startup has closed its fifth financing in nine months, with Shenzhen Capital and other institutions aboard.
OFweek reported that Shaanxi Weilan Deep Sea Information Technology, a marine embodied-AI company, recently closed a new round with Shenzhen Capital, Oriza Yuandian and GuocE Capital investing and returning backer Inno Angel adding more. The round reached angel-plus-plus-plus-plus stage, bringing Weilan to five consecutive financings in nine months.
From a university lab to the seabed
Weilan was founded in September 2021, grown from the Xi’an Jiaotong University deep-sea equipment team under the university’s Marine Technology and Equipment collaborative innovation institute, and backed by the Qinchuangyuan spring-seed fund for tech transfer. Founder Zhang Dayu is a Xi’an Jiaotong PhD and assistant professor with twelve years in unmanned underwater systems, holding over thirty invention patents since high school. The CTO comes from China State Shipbuilding and led more than ten national major projects worth over 2 billion yuan.
The core product is the “Super Frogman” marine embodied-intelligence robot, built from a general underwater-robot platform and a “seabed starlink base”. The general platform fuses acoustic, optical and magnetic sensing across scales, with positioning error under 1 metre, target recognition over 95 per cent, dual six-degree-ofreedom arms, a 10 kg-plus payload, 48-hour endurance and a top speed of 12 knots. The seabed starlink base solves ultra-low-flow power start, generating steadily at currents as low as 0.1 metre per second, giving underwater robots energy and comms. A “general platform plus modular payload” design trains underwater generalisation from real operations, and the company already delivers fully autonomous inspection of seabed energy facilities to marine clients.
The funds go to training the underwater embodied-intelligence model, building an underwater training centre, and deepening robot use in offshore oil and gas. Five rounds in nine months put Weilan at the front of the underwater-robot funding pace. Shenzhen Capital, Oriza Yuandian and GuocE Capital joining, with Inno Angel repeating, points to a clear need: robots replacing people in offshore oil and gas. Weilan already ships autonomous inspection, and the path from demo project to standard service is narrowing.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original OFweek report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://robot.ofweek.com/2026-10/ART-8321204-12005-30706253.html.