Sharpa
Hesai founders' dexterous-robot company: SharpaWave tactile hand and store-running robots; >RMB 4.5B raised
Startup · Shipping · Humanoid startup · Singapore · Founded 2024 · sharpa.com
- Founders David Li Yifan, Xiang Shaoqing, Sun Kai · titles not confirmed
- HQ Singapore · some outlets say Shanghai
- Funding $669M · details not disclosed
Also active in China.
Profile
Sharpa is a dexterous-robotics company founded in late 2024 by Hesai Technology's CEO David Li Yifan, CTO Xiang Shaoqing and chief scientist Sun Kai, the team behind the listed lidar maker. It is headquartered in Singapore with major operations in Shanghai. Its first product, the SharpaWave tactile hand, has 22 active degrees of freedom and entered mass production in October 2025; it is used in NVIDIA's Isaac GR00T reference humanoid. In August 2026 Sharpa disclosed for the first time that it had raised more than RMB 4.5B (about $669M) from Alibaba, Meituan, Tencent, JD.com, Transsion, HongShan and Qiming, among others, at a reported RMB 22B post-money valuation, and opened a Dairy Queen store in Shanghai run entirely by its robots.
Also listed as a component supplier.
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Leadership
- David Li Yifan, Co-founder
- Xiang Shaoqing, Co-founder
- Sun Kai, Co-founder
Flagship robots
- SharpaWave Component
22-DoF tactile dexterous hand with about 1,000 tactile pixels per fingertip; in mass production since Oct 2025 - Sharpa humanoid (North) Wheeled humanoid
Runs a fully automated Dairy Queen store in Shanghai, making Blizzards in a 55-step process on unmodified equipment
Funding and valuation
Latest round
$669M
First disclosed round · Aug 28, 2026
Alibaba, Meituan, Tencent, JD.com, Transsion, HongShan (Sequoia China), Qiming Venture Partners, Meituan Dragonball, Luminous Ventures.
More than RMB 4.5B (~$669M) in total across rounds since founding, first disclosed Aug 28, 2026; individual rounds not broken out.
Original amount: CNY 4,500,000,000. Dollar figures converted from other currencies are approximate.
Total raised
about $669M
As of Aug 28, 2026
More than RMB 4.5B raised since founding (lower bound; USD approximate)
Valuation
$3.3B Reported
post-money (reported) · Aug 28, 2026
RMB 22B post-money, per LatePost
Trademarks
No US filings since 2025 (last checked ).
Source: USPTO Trademark Search, matched on the company’s legal names. Rechecked on the 1st and 15th of each month. A filing shows intent to use a name in the US, not a launched product.
Competitors
Companies with overlapping products. Direct = same customers and same job; Adjacent = overlapping technology or market, different focus.
Robot Era
Direct competitorBoth sell dexterous hands and robots to Chinese buyers: Robot Era makes the STAR1 humanoid and XHAND dexterous hands, while Sharpa makes the SharpaWave tactile dexterous hand and robots that run a Dairy Queen store.
mimic
Direct competitorBoth sell dexterous robot hands as products: mimic develops dexterous robot hands and the AI to run them, while Sharpa makes the SharpaWave tactile dexterous hand and robots that run a Dairy Queen store.
Sanctuary AI
Adjacent competitorBoth make tactile dexterous hands: Sanctuary AI built the Phoenix humanoid with hydraulic hands and now also licenses its physical-AI software, while Sharpa makes the SharpaWave tactile dexterous hand and robots that run a Dairy Queen store.
Recent news
- — Discloses more than RMB 4.5B raised at a reported RMB 22B valuation, and opens a robot-run Dairy Queen store in Shanghai DealStreetAsia Reported
Sources
- 晚点独家丨Sharpa首次披露超45亿融资，李一帆：不为机器人创造就业机 (LatePost via Sina Finance) (Aug 28, 2026)
- Hesai founders' Sharpa bags $670m, unveils fully automated robot restaurant (DealStreetAsia) (Aug 28, 2026)
- Bringing dexterous robots to the world: Sharpa's founder on why Singapore is the launchpad for the future of embodied AI (Singapore EDB) (Oct 13, 2026)
Confidence: medium.