Tactile-sensing startup Qianjue raises hundreds of millions of yuan across two rounds
What's the deal? Chinese tactile-intelligence startup Qianjue has closed two consecutive strategic rounds worth hundreds of millions of yuan each, with the latest backed by Bluerun VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, CICC CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Vitalbridge CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. An earlier round drew top embodied-intelligence industry players plus Tianji CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Jide ElectricDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? Qianjue makes visuo-tactile sensors that give robots a sense of touch — helping them gauge slip, force and surface texture during gripping, assembly and inspection tasks that vision alone cannot handle. The company is building a "hardware-data-model" loop spanning sensors, real-world data collection, tactile simulation and its X-TouchMind V1 vision-touch-language-action model.
What will the money do? The funds will go toward sensor iteration and mass delivery, real-interaction data collection, tactile simulation and dataset building, and continued research on tactile embodied and world models.
Founded in May 2024, Qianjue has produced its self-developed sensors at a scale of tens of thousands of units and served more than 300 paying customers across robotics, manufacturing, consumer brands and research institutions. Its shareholder base now includes Hillhouse's GL VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Yuanhe OriginDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Li Auto, AgiBot and Jide Electric, several of which have backed multiple rounds.
Why now? Touch is becoming a critical layer in embodied AI. Shanghai's development plan lists multimodal perception including touch as key to how robots gather environmental data, while Shenzhen's revised 2026 action plan names multi-dimensional tactile sensing and VTLA models as priority technologies.
What could go wrong? The gap between a working prototype and scalable delivery is wide. Manufacturing consistency, calibration efficiency, material lifespan and supply-chain stability all shape whether tactile solutions reach production systems. Qianjue says its sensors hit 97% cross-unit and repeat consistency, a 5 million-cycle contact life, and IP68 waterproofing verified over 240 hours of continuous underwater testing.
Founder Ma Daolin is a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University who did postdoctoral work at MIT under Alberto Rodriguez, now head of Robot Behavior at Boston Dynamics. Ma won ICRA's sole best paper award in 2021.
Deployments already span AgiBot's dexterous-hand robots, DewuDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s product-authentication machines, a global medical group's hazardous-drug preparation demo, and pilots with CATL and L'Oréal.
The signal: As tactile technology leaves the lab, competition shifts from single-point performance to engineering delivery, product consistency and real customer return on investment. Investors say the sector is moving from technical validation to scaled delivery — and Qianjue must now prove its full-stack tactile capability works reliably across more complex, real-world tasks.
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
