Sharpa has completed more than 4.5 billion yuan in financing, valuing the general-purpose robotics company at 22 billion yuan after the funding. Investors include Alibaba, Meituan, Tencent and JD.com, as well as Sequoia China, Qiming Venture Partners and Meituan Longzhu. Founded at the end of 2024 by Hesai Technology CEO Li Yifan, CTO Xiang Shaoqing and chief scientist Sun Kai, Sharpa develops general-purpose robots and components focused on dexterous manipulation (precise handling of objects). Co-founder Li Yifan said the company plans to build generalization (the ability to apply learned skills across tasks) by fully developing several real-world use cases and collecting operational data, before gradually entering homes from 2028. Sharpa defines a viable real-world setting as one requiring no environment redesign for robots, fully autonomous operation and completion of complex, multi-step tasks.