The second funding round for Lumos Robotics in only two months, and the third in six months. The company has raised more than RMB 200 million through angel investments. Earlier investors include Innoangel Funds, SenseCapitals, Plum Ventures and Gao Bingqiang.
Lumos Robotics, founded in 2024 focuses on embodied intelligent for household applications. Its business includes R&D, sales, and artificial intelligence algorithms. The LUS and MOS series of humanoid robotics, as well components such as visuotactile sensors and robotic joint modules, are the core product lines.
Yu Chao founded the company, a Tsinghua University grad with nearly a decade’s experience in embodied robot R&D and marketing. He was previously the head of the humanoid robots division at Dreame Technology where he assembled teams for high-profile projects such as Xiaomi’s CyberDog, and Dreame’s quadrupled robot. Yu is also credited for creating the first backflipping robot powered by electric drive.
Lumos’s core team includes alumni of institutions such as Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Several founding team members worked at Dreame’s MagicLab, and are recognized experts on large embodied models. The team has a decade’s worth of experience in embodied cognition and motion control, as well as component design. They have a proven track record for scaling consumer-grade robots to commercialization.
Lumos Robotics revealed its full-scale, humanoid robot LUS earlier this year. It was built entirely from in-house components. The model is in pre-production, and volume shipments are expected later this year.
The company has developed in-house key hardware components, including high-performance, integrated joints, precision encoders and visuotactile sensor. These components are designed for high performance and cost-efficiency as the company prepares to mass produce. Also, multiple robots that are optimized for industrial scenarios will be developed.
Lumos has developed a “embodied brain” software system for large embodied robots based on an end-to-end proprietary architecture that is differentiable. The system integrates multimodal (including vision and tactile) data with task-specific algorithm to interpret and execute complex tasks. Lumos has just launched its first visuotactile product line, the LUX series. These modules use end to end imitation learning to tightly pair haptic sense, visual recognition,and motion control. Among these, the LUX G gripper is reportedly as sensitive as a fingertip and capable of detecting small changes in torque and force.
Yu, in his comments on the future plans for large embodied models of itss, stressed the importance of tactile senses to enable dexterous handling. Lumos has already integrated tactile sensing into its vision-language-action (VLA) framework and is preparing to launch its first VTLA (VLA plus tactile) model. This foundational system is designed for robotics and multimodal application. The company’s visuotactile sensor technology provides the essential data infrastructure. Applications include manufacturing, healthcare, consumer electronic, and scientific research.
According to 36KrLumos Robotics formed partnerships with Damon Technology, and COSCO Shipping. These collaborations are aimed at deploying embodied AI for smart manufacturing and logistics, co-developing key components, exploring new use cases, as well as linking robotic innovation to the broader supply chain.
Lumos is planning to expand its product range through technical innovation. This will ensure that it meets the needs of diverse industries. The company aims to intensify collaborations in sectors such as healthcare, logistics, industrial automation, and service, accelerating robotics integration into real-world industries.
Xing Lizhe said, in a statement about the investment, that the next phase of embodied AI depends on real-world deployment. “Lumos Robotics is the owner of the entire stack, from the VLA framework down to the physical hardware. Xing stated that this gives it a strong potential for commercialization.
Humanoid robots have real-world applications and logistics is one the most promising sectors. Zhuo Zhu, chairman at Damon Technology, said that Lumos had a lot of experience in this area and was aligned with logistics use cases. “We believe that the company is on a rapid growth path and will support it in its efforts to roll out its technology across various industrial scenarios.
KrASIA Connection offers translated and adapted content originally published by 36Kr. This article has been written by Huang Nan exclusively for 36Kr.
