On July 25, China’s independent controllable universal high-end CNC system research and development enterprise “Botai Automation” announced the completion of 30 million yuan seed round financing, Zhengxuan Investment, Yaotu Capital jointly led the investment, leap for the capital as an exclusive incubation consultant, and will serve as the company’s long-term financial adviser. This round of financing will mainly be used for product research and development.

The founding team of Botai Automation was formed at the end of 2022, committed to creating China’s first independent and controllable high-end universal numerical control system, and fully covering the full life cycle of numerical control system from research and development to sales.

CNC machine tools are known as “industrial mother-machine” and “modern industrial heart”, and are key areas for high-end breakthroughs in manufacturing. The technological development level of high-end CNC machine tools is one of the standards to measure a country’s core manufacturing capability.

The numerical control system is the core operating system of numerical control machine tools, known as the “industrial brain”, which directly affects the type, complexity, and dynamic and static accuracy characteristics of the machine tools, and then determines the overall processing efficiency of numerical control machine tools. Therefore, the development of high-end machine tool CNC systems is related to China’s core field supply chain security, and there are clear market opportunities.

The domestic numerical control system market size is about 15 to 20 billion yuan, but the market pattern shows obvious two-level differentiation. Domestic players are mainly concentrated in the low-end market, high-end CNC systems have long been absolute monopoly by the three major foreign families. Japan’s Fanuc, Mitsubishi and Germany’s Siemens account for more than 95% of China’s high-end CNC market. Domestic high-end CNC system products are almost a blank, making China in this key product field has been in a state of the neck, the development of China’s fully autonomous and controllable high-end universal CNC system products is imperative.

In this field, the requirements for technology, experience, talent, etc., are extremely high, and the core team combination of Botai Automation is extremely scarce: the team not only has the international top industrial vision and technical advantages, but also has localized landing operation experience.

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In recent years, with the vigorous development of key industries such as downstream 3C, new energy vehicles, national defense, and aerospace, as well as China’s machine tool consumption entering the renewal and replacement cycle, high-end CNC machine tools have entered a period of significant demand growth, putting higher requirements on the technical capabilities of host manufacturers of CNC machine tools in the middle stream.

To this end, the state has significantly expanded its support for industrial mother-machines in terms of policy and funding. At the SASAC meeting held in August 2021, industrial mother-machines were listed as the first key industries for the first time. In the 20 report of 2022, it is once again mentioned to accelerate the construction of a manufacturing power, support the development of specialized and special new enterprises, and promote the high-end, intelligent and green development of the manufacturing industry.

Numerical control system as the brain of CNC machine tools, accounting for 20% to 40% of the total cost, but the pain point of domestic machine tool manufacturers is: Japanese high-end system suppliers need to face the pressure of the ban on sales embargo; German suppliers have the problem of long lead times and high prices. China’s CNC system enterprises mainly focus on the low-end market, to customized project delivery, unable to carry the functional needs and versatility of high-end machine tools, coupled with domestic technology accumulation is not systematic, slow progress in the impact of the high-end market.

Based on the above background, the development idea of Botai Automation is: based on the world-class research and development experience of the founding team, rebuild the underlying structure of the numerical control system, and truly realize the comprehensive domestic autonomous control of high-end universal numerical control products. To be specific:

In terms of infrastructure, the functional modules of the internal control mechanism and the external related hardware are completely decoupled, making them suitable for different types of CNC machine tools, maintaining the versatility and competitiveness of the product.

In terms of data architecture, it fully decouples real-time, quasi-real-time and non-real-time processing data to achieve real-time performance and the performance of core CNC functions, ensuring that the control accuracy and speed catch up with imported products.

In terms of processing modules, the design is optimized to meet the real-time and operational requirements of different functions, while taking into account the potential of future scalability and the improvement of system stability.

Yu Xiaocui, investment director of Zhengxuan Investment, said, “In the next ten years, advanced manufacturing is China’s core high-quality assets, the upgrading of manufacturing will bring a new round of growth cycle of high-end CNC machine tools, from the whole machine to the core parts have ushered in localization opportunities, including spindle, bearings, CNC systems.” Among them, the scale of CNC system is 10 billion, soft and hard coupling, and the threshold is extremely high, which is a blue ocean market worth deep cultivation. At this opportunity, Zhengxuan is honored to witness and participate in the founding of Botai Automation, the strength, experience and vision of the team are first-class in the world, we will fully support the development of Botai, and contribute to China’s advanced manufacturing.”

Song Ye, managing director of Yaotu Capital, said, “Yaotu Capital has always firmly believed that intelligent manufacturing is the cornerstone of China’s development, industrial machines are the key to intelligent manufacturing, and numerical control systems are the brains of industrial machines. Botai’s core team has a very high scarcity in the field of high-end numerical control systems, and also has the determination to break through the domestic “jam neck” status quo. Intelligent manufacturing is one of the key layout of Yaotu capital track, Yaotu capital will continue to deepen the intelligent manufacturing industry, with entrepreneurs, to create intelligent manufacturing ecological chain.”

In the view of capital, high-end CNC systems are the weak link in China’s industrial mother-machine industry chain. With world-class team and experience, Botai will fully realize the domestic control of high-end general-purpose CNC products, helping China’s industrial machine industry to strengthen the chain. Leap for capital long-term attention to the development and opportunities of industrial technology and industrial machinery industry chain. It is a great honor to accompany the establishment and growth of Botai Automation, and will continue to accompany the company to achieve greater strides. We firmly believe and support Botai to become the backbone of intelligent manufacturing in China.