Sharpa Raises $670M at $3.27B Robotics Valuation

Sharpa, a general-purpose robotics company founded by three Hesai Technology co-founders, has disclosed more than 4.5 billion yuan ($670 million) in cumulative funding. Its post-money valuation reached 22 billion yuan ($3.27 billion), exceeding Hesai Technology’s current market value. Investors include Alibaba, Meituan, Tencent, JD.com, Sequoia China and Qiming Venture Partners. Founded in late 2024, Sharpa develops dexterous hands, humanoid robots and physical AI models. Its first commercial deployment is in Dairy Queen stores, where a robot uses existing staff equipment to complete about 55 steps in making a Blizzard. Training took less than five months, although the robot currently works at about half the speed of a human employee. Sharpa says practical robots must operate without environmental modifications, work autonomously and complete complex, economically valuable tasks. Its Wave hand has 22 active degrees of freedom, while the North humanoid robot has 67. The company’s CraftNet model combines vision, touch, language and movement. Sharpa plans to expand into restaurants, hotels and retail before exploring household applications from 2028. For crypto traders, Sharpa is primarily a venture-capital and physical AI signal. The Sharpa funding news has no direct impact on cryptocurrency prices or blockchain markets. Any longer-term effect would likely come indirectly through broader technology investment sentiment.