- Company closes round amid rapid funding streak in embodied AI hardware
- IP68-rated dexterous hand expands from household tasks to deep-sea operations
HeymanTech (黑漫科技), a Hangzhou-based developer of dexterous robotic hands, has raised several tens of millions of yuan in a Series A financing round as investors continue to bet on embodied AI hardware designed for extreme environments such as underwater rescue and deep-sea operations.
The round was led by Addor Capital, with participation from Jiuzhao Capital and continued backing from existing investor 01VC.
Strategic investors including Leju Robotics, Dongfang Precision, Zhejiang Zhaofeng Shares and Shenhao Tech have also participated in earlier rounds.
Over the past six months, the company has completed three financing rounds totaling nearly 100 million yuan ($14.78 million).
HeymanTech’s core product is the WA series waterproof dexterous hand, which it describes as the world’s first commercially deployed IP68-rated robotic hand, setting it apart from similar hardware suppliers.
Prolonged underwater operation
The rating indicates full dust protection and resistance to prolonged underwater operation.
The company has developed two versions targeting different use cases. A standard model aimed at household and service scenarios uses food-grade materials and offers six degrees of freedom, enabling tasks such as washing vegetables and dishes.
An industrial version is designed for deep-sea environments and can be customized for pressure resistance from 300 meters to 10,000 meters, with applications in marine research, underwater archaeology, rescue operations and ocean farming.
Real-world challenges
At a robotics competition held in Hangzhou in May, the company’s waterproof hand was tested in an underwater rescue challenge that required robots to locate, identify, retrieve and return objects at varying depths.
Some categories prohibited remote control entirely, testing autonomous perception and decision-making.
HeymanTech said its industrial version delivers a fivefold improvement in manipulation generalization capability compared with traditional underwater grippers, with an 80% increase in task success rates.
Experience from the ‘Jiaolong’ project
Founded in July 2025 and based in Hangzhou’s Future Sci-Tech City, the company’s team has previously contributed to deep-sea 8,000-meter-class landing systems and sampling tools used on China’s Jiaolong submersible program.
The company targets what it describes as a “gap in the market” between underwater equipment that lacks dexterity and robotic hands that cannot operate in high-pressure, corrosive environments.
Traditional underwater systems rely on rigid grippers, which struggle with irregular objects such as sea cucumbers, sea urchins or rocks.
Conventional robotic hands typically fail under water due to sealing, corrosion and pressure constraints.
Deep-sea engineering
HeymanTech said it combines deep-sea engineering technologies with precision manipulation systems.
Its sealing design has undergone more than 100 iterations with micron-level tolerances, while an internal low-power tendon-driven system packs six motors into a palm-sized structure designed to withstand 500,000 motion cycles, according to the startup.
According to GGII, a market intelligence firm, China’s dexterous hand market reached about 19,200 units in 2025, up 236.84% year on year, and is expected to surge to 70,200 units in 2026 and more than 430,000 units by 2030.
HeymanTech is currently scaling up production capacity as it seeks to move dexterous hands from niche applications toward broader industrial deployment.
