The Chinese embodied artificial intelligence sector continues to attract significant capital, with Beijing Delta Intelligence (Detasense) emerging as the latest startup to secure substantial backing. Incubated by the prestigious Beijing Institute of General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), Detasense announced on April 16, 2026, that it has completed three consecutive funding rounds totaling over 100 million yuan.
The rapid succession of these rounds highlights the intense investor interest in companies building the foundational software for humanoid robots. Detasense’s focus on Humanoid Foundation Models (HFMs) and a native 3D world engine for loco-manipulation places it at the center of the race to solve the complex challenges of robotic mobility and dexterity.
Strategic Backing from Top-Tier Investors and OEMs
The investor syndicate behind Detasense is notable for its combination of top-tier venture capital and strategic industry players. GL Ventures, the early-stage investment arm of Hillhouse Capital, participated in the rounds, providing crucial financial backing and network access.
More significantly, the rounds included strategic investments from major Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the robotics space: Leju, Zhiyuan, and Xinghaitu. This direct involvement from hardware manufacturers underscores the critical need for advanced software to unlock the full potential of their robotic platforms.
By securing backing from these OEMs, Detasense is positioning its Humanoid Foundation Models as a potential industry standard, aiming to provide the “brain” for a variety of different robotic “bodies.” This strategy is similar to the approach taken by Jijia Vision, which recently closed a 1.5 billion yuan Series B1 to become China’s first world model unicorn.
A Founding Team of Global AI Talent
Detasense’s rapid funding success is largely attributable to the pedigree of its founding team, which brings together top-tier academic research and industry experience from some of the world’s leading AI labs.
Founder and CEO Ma Xiaojian holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Tsinghua University and a Ph.D. from UCLA. His professional background includes stints at Google Robotics and NVIDIA Research, providing him with deep expertise in both the software algorithms and hardware acceleration required for embodied AI.
Co-founder Liu Hangxin, who holds a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech and UCLA, serves as an assistant professor at Peking University. His experience leading projects for DARPA, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) brings rigorous academic and defense-level research capabilities to the team.
Co-founder and Chief Scientist Huang Siyuan, a Tsinghua and UCLA Ph.D., previously worked at DeepMind and Meta. He also serves as the director of the BIGAI Embodied Robotics Center, cementing the startup’s strong ties to one of China’s premier AI research institutions.
The Focus on Loco-Manipulation and 3D World Engines
Detasense’s technical approach centers on solving the dual challenges of locomotion (movement) and manipulation (interacting with objects). While many robotics companies focus on one or the other, Detasense is building a unified humanoid foundation model that handles both simultaneously—a capability known as loco-manipulation.
To achieve this, the company is developing a native 3D world engine. This simulation environment allows AI models to learn the physics of the real world, practice complex movements, and refine their control algorithms in a safe, virtual space before deployment on physical hardware.
This approach is critical for the development of general-purpose humanoid robots capable of operating in unstructured human environments. The successful funding of Detasense, alongside the massive rounds raised by competitors such as Jijia Vision and EngineAI, demonstrates that the Chinese venture capital ecosystem is aggressively backing the foundational technologies required for the embodied AI era. With a world-class team and strategic backing from leading hardware players, Detasense is well-positioned to be a major force in shaping the future of humanoid robotics.