NEXFORM raises seed round to build modular hardware for physical AGI

The Zhejiang startup wants third-party developers to write skills for the physical world the way they write apps for a phone.

NEXFORM, the Hangzhou-based physical artificial general intelligence company formally known as Hangzhou Yudao Artificial Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., has announced the completion of a seed round worth tens of millions of yuan. Gobi Partners and Zheda Youchuang backed the round.

Founded in 2023, the company is led by a team from the Robotics Institute of Zhejiang University and was incubated by the Tianmu Laboratory at Zhejiang University's Xinchang Joint Innovation Center. It focuses on general-purpose embodied robots, key components and embodied-intelligence application solutions. Its products include the SE seven-axis robotic arm and the W1 commercial-grade interactive embodied operation robot.

NEXFORM says it has signed cooperation agreements with several hotel groups and property management companies, with cumulative contract value reaching several hundred million yuan — hotel lobbies and property-management scenarios being its opening commercial ground.

The strategy is a "general-purpose hardware platform + developer ecosystem + physical agents" play: a Lego-style modular approach with OEM and ODM services for global clients. When hardware capabilities gradually converge, the company is betting the moat will be built through developer ecosystems rather than closed single-scenario systems.