DJI Former Exec Backs Personal Mobility Robot, Raising Nearly $100M

Strutt, a company founded in 2023 and headquartered in Singapore with R&D and supply chain bases in China's Greater Bay Area, recently completed a Pre-A+ funding round, bringing its cumulative funding to nearly $100 million. The round saw participation from a global leading mobility technology company, an investment fund under a top Chinese internet company, and a representative industrial fund from the Greater Bay Area. The funds will be used for personal physical AI technology R&D, global marketing and sales channel construction, and the scaled production and delivery of the first personal intelligent mobility robot, EV1. The company has officially adopted the Chinese brand name 'Angshou', and the robot's official name in China is 'Angshou EV1', with China market operations planned for the second half of 2026 and early test drive registrations now open. The EV1 targets scenarios such as homes, communities, supermarkets, and outdoor use, featuring a companion driving system composed of multimodal sensors, a chassis with four motors, active steering, and four-wheel independent suspension, enabling it to navigate indoor and urban public spaces, as well as grass, gravel, and some light unpaved roads. The company aims to reduce user control burden in complex environments by providing driving assistance and obstacle avoidance while retaining user control. The EV1 also has multiple data interfaces, allowing for the future addition of robotic arms and end effectors to perform tasks like item retrieval, light carrying, and clothing organization. In May of this year, EV1 started mass production and delivery, with sales and delivery volume reaching several million dollars, no major customer complaints, and a zero return rate so far. The company notes that mass production challenges are not individual components but integrating multimodal sensors, four-motor drive, active steering, independent suspension, power battery, edge computing, and software into a stable production system. Founder and CEO Hong Xiaoping said the team spent nearly three years on product development and mass production preparation, validating in environments like low temperature, high altitude, gravel, grass, and slopes. The design includes remote diagnostics and OTA upgrades for software issues and modular hardware to reduce cross-border repairs. EV1 is currently sold in dozens of countries, with an initial focus on European and American markets due to their mature personal mobility device markets. The company has established test drive, community event, and partner networks in key overseas cities, achieving a test drive-to-purchase conversion rate of nearly 50%. For the Chinese market, the strategy is 'one global technology platform plus deep regional localization', not copying the overseas model, with plans to build a complete loop of test drives, sales, delivery, service, and user community. Hong emphasized that the company is not making a functionally improved mobility tool but defining a new species that deeply integrates perception, decision, control, and power systems, aiming to become an AI terminal capable of understanding environments and user needs, and performing personal physical tasks.