On August 13, Nous Robot, a rising star in precision transmission, officially announced the completion of a nearly 100 million RMB Series A+ funding round, led by Shunwei Capital and heavily followed by Wangqian Mingcheng, under CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited). Established only three years ago, the company holds the world's smallest mass-produced planetary roller screw with a diameter of just 1.5mm. It has driven the price of imported micro screws, which once started at tens of thousands of RMB, down to the hundreds of RMB range, thoroughly tearing open the industrial gap monopolized by overseas giants.
- Dual Strategic Investments from Capital Following the completion of this Series A+ funding round, Nous has assembled a capital portfolio spanning four major industrial sectors: automotive, consumer electronics, new energy, and robotics. Having completed four rounds of financing in total, its investor list reads like an all-star lineup of the industry chain: SAIC Venture Capital, Lenovo Capital, Pudong Sci-Tech Innovation, and Shanghai Semiconductor Equipment Investment have successively joined. The joint injection from Shunwei Capital and CATL's capital releases two key industry signals. For Shunwei Capital, this investment is a crucial move by Lei Jun to layout the entire humanoid robot supply chain. Shunwei has long been deeply engaged in the advanced manufacturing and robotics tracks, from the quadruped robot Unitree Robotics to the industrial automation Standard Robots, continuously making up for the shortcomings in core robot components. Under Xiaomi's "Human-Car-Home" omni-scenario strategy, micro screws are essential underlying hardware for humanoid dexterous hands and service robots. Securing a position in the precision transmission track in advance not only perfects the robot ecosystem supply chain but also locks in low-cost component supply for the future mass production of consumer-grade humanoid robots. The entry of Wangqian Mingcheng, under CATL, reflects the logic of industrial technology reuse. Lithium battery manufacturing, low-altitude drone servos, and smart cockpit actuators all have massive demand for small, high-thrust linear transmission components. Nous's micro electric cylinder solution can be directly reused in lithium battery coating and drone actuators, achieving two-way empowerment between new energy and robotics technologies. Industry estimates show that by 2030, the global market size for planetary roller screws in embodied scenarios will reach 29.8 billion RMB, and the supporting micro electric cylinder market will exceed 106.9 billion RMB. For a long time, the high-end planetary roller screw market has been dominated by overseas companies such as Switzerland's GSA and Rollvis, Germany's Bosch Rexroth, and Sweden's Ewellix. Together, they hold over 80% of the market share. Miniaturized products are almost entirely dependent on imports, with a single sample often priced at tens of thousands of RMB, directly driving up the cost of the entire dexterous hand and becoming the biggest shackle for the scaled deployment of humanoid robots. Capital's concentrated bet on the domestic micro screw track at this moment is precisely aimed at the dual dividends of domestic substitution and cost reduction.
- The World's Smallest 1.5mm Screw The planetary roller screw is the precision tendon of humanoid robots, responsible for converting motor rotation into precise linear motion. Compared to traditional ball screws, it offers a 3-5 times increase in load capacity, triples the lifespan, and features inherent self-locking capabilities. This significantly reduces motor heat generation and energy consumption, making it the optimal transmission solution for high-degree-of-freedom dexterous hands and robot joints. However, miniaturized machining is a globally recognized challenge—the internal space of dexterous hand fingers is extremely limited, requiring both extreme volume reduction and the maintenance of micrometer-level precision. Previously, almost no company worldwide could stably mass-produce products with specifications below 2mm. Nous has achieved a breakthrough in the industry: realizing stable mass production of planetary roller screws with a 1.5mm diameter and a 5.5mm nut, reaching industrial C5 precision. The repetitive positioning error is controlled within ±0.01mm, the maximum load capacity is 50N, and the overall service life exceeds 3 million cycles. This is currently the smallest specification micro roller screw publicly available for mass production globally. Based on this screw, Nous has integrated a brushless motor and non-contact sensors to create an integrated micro linear electric cylinder the size of a USB flash drive (8mm × 10.2mm), capable of outputting 15 kg of thrust within its compact volume. Founder Xu Yang once stated publicly that, at the same volume, their electric cylinder outputs 4-5 times the thrust of peers. Greater material redundancy brings lower wear and a longer service life, perfectly adapting to complex movements such as fine pinching by robot fingers and multi-degree-of-freedom rotation of wrists. The most disruptive aspect is cost restructuring: overseas counterparts of the same micro screw start at tens of thousands of RMB per unit. Relying on its self-developed high-precision cold forming process, Nous has increased production efficiency tenfold, directly locking the unit price of the product under 100 RMB, reducing the price by two orders of magnitude. In the past, a single screw could consume one-third of the material cost of a dexterous hand. Now, with costs significantly driven down, the large-scale commercialization of high-degree-of-freedom dexterous hands has become a reality. Many laboratory solutions can produce visually appealing samples, but frequently experience yield collapses and precision drift during the mass production stage. The core reason Nous can achieve stable mass production lies in bypassing the industry's conventional route and breaking free from the reliance on expensive imported precision grinding machines. Traditional high-end thread processing equipment costs millions to tens of millions of RMB per unit, posing a heavy burden for domestic companies to expand production. In contrast, Nous's self-developed exclusive metal cold forming process can complete micrometer-level thread processing without relying on high-end grinding equipment, fundamentally solving the dual problems of mass production costs and equipment bottlenecks.
- 50 Years of Process Heritage Across Two Generations Nous may appear to be a startup established only three years ago, but it actually holds underlying process assets cultivated over half a century in mechanical manufacturing, serving as a typical model of "second-generation technology entrepreneurship." Technical consultant Xu Genlin is a retired mechanical professor from Shanghai University. He has been deeply engaged in screw manufacturing for over 50 years. From special material formulas and heat treatment curves to thread forming parameters, all exclusive processes have been accumulated through decades of frontline trial and error. Founder Xu Yang holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Tongji University and formerly served as the head of Valeo's Asia-Pacific R&D Center. Co-founder Wang Xiaobin is also a Valeo executive, possessing comprehensive operational experience in taking a company from zero to Pre-IPO. The older generation accumulated a complete set of manufacturing processes for traditional industrial screws, while the younger generation introduced the standardized production system of Tier-1 automotive suppliers, forming a unique technological combination advantage. All core team members come from Valeo, completely replicating the stringent standards of the automotive industry—million-level batch shipments, PPM-level defect control, and full lifecycle traceability—into robot component production. The extreme requirements for automotive components regarding stability, consistency, and lifespan, when applied to micro screw production, create a dimension-reducing strike against pure laboratory startup teams. Nous does not rely on a single patent to build barriers but has created a "Force Matrix" full-category technology platform: vertically, product thrust covers 3 kg to 1000 kg; horizontally, it covers six major scenarios including micro dexterous hands, humanoid limb joints, automotive actuators, drone servos, medical surgical instruments, and semiconductor equipment. To ensure a unified lifespan for the entire actuator set, a single model of the company's electric cylinder undergoes continuous half-year loaded aging tests, while simultaneously iterating dedicated alloy materials adapted for micro scenarios, solving the pain point that traditional automotive and medical screw materials are unsuitable for the high-frequency reciprocating movements of robots.
- Dual-Drive of Automotive and Robotics, Sprinting to 10 Million Units Capacity by Year-End At this stage, Nous's revenue from automotive and humanoid robot businesses each accounts for 50%, forming a perfect balance of stable cash flow and a high-growth track. Xu Yang judges that the full commercialization of humanoid robots still requires time. The automotive business can provide continuous and stable orders, supporting the company's ongoing R&D and expansion, and helping the team bind with top core customers in the industry's elimination game. On the automotive side, Nous is deeply deployed in the two major tracks of wire-controlled chassis and smart cockpits. It has jointly developed rear-wheel steering roller screws with multiple Tier-1 suppliers of OEMs, securing 8 design wins at once in the Yanfeng seating project. The micro high-force-density electric cylinder can significantly reduce seat thickness and overall weight, and the solution has been recognized by SAIC Motor. In the robotics track, the 1.5mm micro linear joint solution has entered the supply chain for the new generation models of top-tier domestic humanoid robots. Meanwhile, it provides standardized micro electric cylinder modules for multiple leading dexterous hand companies, with the core transmission units of the well-known Linker L20 dexterous hand all supplied by Nous. Beyond this, the products have been implemented in the low-altitude economy track, supplying control surface linear actuators to leading drone companies, achieving cross-industry reuse of micro high-load and high-reliability technological capabilities. In terms of capacity, the existing factory in Suzhou operates at full capacity 24/7, yet the annual capacity of 3 million units still cannot cover all orders on hand. After the nearly 100 million RMB funding from this round is in place, the company plans to complete production line expansion by the end of 2026, increasing the annual capacity of micro planetary roller screws to 10 million units, reaching 3.3 times the existing capacity. Simultaneously, it will increase investment in the R&D of integrated smart electric cylinders and the expansion of overseas market channels. Future new products will be equipped with triple real-time feedback for force, position, and temperature, giving robot fingertips human-like tactile perception to accurately identify minute changes in gripping force.
- Breakthrough in Domestic Micro Transmission: The Era of Mass-Produced Humanoid Robots is Approaching For a long time, precision transmission components have been the hardest bone to chew in the humanoid robot supply chain, with micro planetary roller screws being the core of the core. Nous has broken the dual monopoly of overseas equipment and products through two generations of process accumulation and self-developed cold forming processes. By rewriting the cost structure of dexterous hands with 100-RMB-level mass-produced products, and simultaneously receiving endorsements from multi-track industrial capitals such as Shunwei, CATL, SAIC, and Lenovo, it proves that domestic micro transmission components already possess the strength to compete on the same stage as overseas giants. As the 10-million-unit capacity is realized and products continue to iterate, the advantages of the local supply chain—low cost and rapid response—will be continuously amplified. When the screws at the fingertips are no longer constrained by expensive imported components, the scaled popularization of high-degree-of-freedom dexterous hands and household service humanoid robots will be closer to us. Furthermore, the cross-industry "Force Matrix" transmission platform built by Nous will continue to empower multiple high-end manufacturing tracks including automotive, low-altitude, medical, and semiconductor sectors, becoming a benchmark force in the globalization of domestic precision transmission. END