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VisionNav offers a line of autonomous forklifts with a variety of features, including high rack storage and narrow aisle access. | Source: VisionNav Robotics

VisionNav Robotics, a Shenzhen, China-based company that develops logistics robots, raised more than $80 million in Series C+ funding. VisionNav is committed to providing automated material handling systems with visual artificial intelligence navigation technology. 

VisionNav’s automated guided vehicles (AGVs) include forklifts, indoor and outdoor tractors and BrightEye, its smart AGV system. Its line of autonomous forklifts include options such as 9.4 meter high rack storage, 2-meter narrow aisle access, unmanned loading and unloading and multi-layer mobile material frame stacking. The company has delivered more than 1,500 autonomous forklifts and tractors as part of over 350 individual projects. 

Metituan, a Chinese food delivery platform, and 5Y Capital, a Chinese venture capital firm, led the funding round. VisionNav plans to use the recent round of funding to research and develop, optimize product performance, increase stability and standardization in its products and promote large-scale implementation. 

Luyang Li, co-founder and CEO of VisionNav, said that the company’s sales grew tenfold between 2019 and 2021, and the company expects sales to continue to grow. In 2022, it estimates sales to surge by 300%, with the average order amount increasing by 350%. The company has plenty of room to grow in a rapidly expanding Chinese robotics industry.

The country recently unveiled its latest five-year plan for robotics, which laid out goals for the Chinese robotics industry to reach before 2025. Those goals included strengthening industrial innovation capabilities and increasing the supply of high end products. In 2020, China was the eighth most automated country in the world, a large jump from being 25th in 2015.   

VisionNav was founded in 2016 by Yunhui Liu, now the chairman, Mu Fang, now the CTO, Yujie Lu, now the CRO and Li, a team of graduates from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Tokyo. Since its founding the company has brought in more than $97 million in funding.