Company · Sharpa 0 items

One-liner: A Singapore-based full-stack embodied AI company whose competitive edge is high-resolution tactile dexterous hands, building humanoid robots and embodied AI models upward from the hand, aiming for general-purpose robots that complete complex real-world tasks end-to-end.

Key facts: Founded in late 2024 by Hesai co-founders Yifan Li, Shaoqing Xiang, and Kai Sun (none hold executive roles; no equity or operational control ties to Hesai). Global HQ in Singapore with offices in Shanghai and Mountain View. In March 2026 the company first disclosed cumulative funding exceeding RMB 4.5 billion and a post-money valuation of roughly RMB 22 billion (~USD 3.27 billion), backed by Alibaba, Meituan, Tencent, JD.com, Sequoia China, and Qiming Venture Partners. Singapore's EDB has called it a unicorn. The company has not yet generated revenue.

Products & technology: Its stack spans three layers: dexterous hands, humanoids, and foundation models. The flagship Wave hand has 22 active DoF with the proprietary Dynamic Tactile Array (DTA), fingertip force above 20N and 0.02N tactile sensitivity; it entered mass production in October 2025 and won a CES 2026 Innovation Award. The North full-body humanoid has 67 DoF, launched in early 2026, and is being deployed at Dairy Queen stores for real commercial tasks such as making ice cream. CraftNet, its in-house VTLA model, fuses vision, touch, language, and action with System 0/1/2 layers for fine manipulation. The company follows a "direct-drive transmission + tactile-first" approach and works closely with NVIDIA's Isaac GR00T reference humanoid ecosystem.

Market position: Sharpa is regarded as a technical benchmark in the dexterous hand segment; peers praise its engineering of visuo-tactile sensing (its card-dealing demo at IROS 2025 and four robots working eight-hour shifts for four consecutive days at CES 2026 drew strong industry recognition). It competes with Chinese hand makers such as Fourier and Inspire Robots, differentiating on tactile precision and full-stack in-house capability. Unlisted, its valuation reportedly surpasses that of Hesai, the listed parent of its founding team (per media reports).

Data note: funding and valuation figures follow media reports from March 2026 (BlockTempo, Sina Tech, Leiphone) and have not been independently verified against official announcements.