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Column Introduction
In the wave of industrial transformation driven by artificial intelligence, a number of alumni enterprises from Shanghai Jiao Tong University are rapidly emerging. From the shores of Siyuan Lake to the front lines of industry, they deeply integrate cutting-edge technology with industry needs, launching innovative solutions in various fields such as large models, computing power, intelligent manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and finance. This column focuses on these alumni enterprises, showcasing their technological innovations and presenting the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem of Jiao Tong University alumni, while providing practical examples for the industrialization of technology in the AI era.
1
Understanding Kusa
Kusa Technology, as an innovator in the field of urban service robots, focuses on the design and sales of unmanned operation robots and intelligent cloud control platforms, dedicated to providing unmanned operation solutions covering the entire lifecycle, helping customers achieve large-scale implementation of unmanned operations.
The team consists of senior experts from industries such as complete vehicles, autonomous driving, robotics, chips, and environmental protection, with core members having over 16 years of experience in sanitation informatization and 15 years in the research and development and management of complete vehicles, robotics, and autonomous driving. The proportion of master’s and doctoral degree holders in the R&D team exceeds 50%, laying a solid foundation for the company’s technological innovation and R&D capabilities.
Currently, urban service unmanned cleaning robots have been deployed in nearly 30 cities domestically and internationally, widely used in various open scenarios such as urban roads, parks, scenic spots, industrial parks, and campuses; all robots can be purchased with commercial insurance (product quality insurance and third-party liability insurance). From 2023 to 2025, the company has been selected for three consecutive years in the “Recommended Directory of Benchmark Enterprises and Application Scenarios for Intelligent Robots in Shanghai” published by the Shanghai Municipal Economic and Information Commission, highlighting its technological strength and demonstration value in the industry.
Having completed four rounds of financing within just two years of establishment, and successfully landing products in nearly 30 cities nationwide, this urban service robot company is steadily promoting the transition of robots from industrial production to human environments. In Kusa’s vision, in the future smart city, various service robots will seamlessly integrate into daily life, achieving orderly collaborative operations in urban scenarios and forming an efficient closed loop. Since its establishment in June 2023, Kusa Technology has continuously transformed this vision into real actions.
The founding team brings together a diverse range of top professional backgrounds, including CEO Yang Xi and Engineering VP Huang Chenbin, both alumni of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. At the beginning of the startup, the team clearly defined its direction, focusing on the sanitation field in open scenarios as the primary commercialization landing point, committed to providing sanitation robot products and unmanned operation solutions covering the entire lifecycle of equipment.
2
Development History
Kusa Technology demonstrated efficient execution capabilities from the very beginning:
June 2023 The company was established, and in the fourth quarter of the same year, the first unmanned cleaning robot, Kusa Xingjun®, was developed and put into actual road operation, successfully completing seed and angel rounds of financing that year.
2024, the company launched the second robot, Kusa Xingjie®, and established insurance and third-party financing leasing channels, creating a complete commercialization closed loop.
Entering 2025, Kusa completed Pre-A and Pre-A+ rounds of financing within two months, and the product made its first overseas landing in Singapore. In September of the same year, the unmanned cleaning robot Kusa Zhijuren® was developed and put into project operation the following month. To date, Kusa’s robots have been deployed in nearly 30 cities and have received investments from several well-known institutions such as Jinsha River Venture Capital, Sidde Venture Capital, and Jinsui Lake Venture Capital.
3
Core Competitiveness
Kusa Technology possesses excellent commercialization speed, solid technical architecture, and replicable product pathways.
Within less than half a year of its establishment, the company achieved product landing, always driven by scene demands in technology R&D, with a rapid commercialization process; on the technical level, Kusa has built a multi-modal perception system centered on AI vision and a complete embodied robot technology architecture, combined with automotive-grade product development processes, ensuring a clear technical path and stable, reliable products; in addition, the company has established a complete system from demand insight to mass delivery, and has distilled the experience of its first product into a reusable methodology, supporting the efficient landing of multiple generations of products.
Kusa is also considered one of the fastest companies in the industry for product development and commercialization, with its robot operation efficiency reaching twice the industry average.
The unmanned cleaning robot independently developed by Kusa Technology is based on Kusa’s self-developed closed operating system, capable of fully understanding the environment in open road scenarios and accurately executing cleaning tasks, achieving centimeter-level edge-following operation precision.
The robot adopts automotive-grade design and selection, meeting the requirements of sanitation operations for consistency, stability, and durability. Relying on an electronic drive chassis and high-precision path planning, the robot can flexibly handle cleaning tasks in narrow roads, corners, and edge areas, maintaining high coverage and efficiency in complex urban scenarios.
Kusa’s unmanned cleaning robot employs a multi-source heterogeneous sensing scheme, integrating non-contact and contact sensors, with visual AI at its core, building global perception capabilities for urban open roads. Non-contact sensors can construct a multi-dimensional perception data matrix, while contact sensors obtain hardness information through force contact, effectively protecting the working mechanism and providing supervisory feedback for the visual system. Through fusion algorithms that integrate data from different modalities, Kusa’s unmanned cleaning robot can form a unified, high-dimensional environmental perception picture, allowing each pixel to simultaneously possess color, texture, and physical property information, significantly enhancing its accuracy and robustness in obstacle recognition, road condition judgment, and operational safety, comprehensively improving the robot’s adaptability to complex urban environments.
During operation, the robot autonomously runs according to preset tasks and achieves multi-machine collaboration through the intelligent cloud control platform. The intelligent cloud control platform has dynamic task scheduling capabilities, integrating a Multi-Agent data closed-loop system, acting as a “command center” that simulates human team collaboration logic using large model technology, managing the task execution, path planning, and resource allocation of the robot cluster, achieving efficient collaborative operations. Actual operational data shows that the innovative model combining the cloud platform and robots can significantly reduce operational costs by 50% compared to traditional models.
4
Commercialization Cases
Currently, Kusa Technology’s unmanned cleaning robots have been scaled and deployed in nearly 30 cities domestically and internationally, with a cumulative deployment of over a hundred units, covering various open scenarios such as auxiliary roads, mixed lanes, parks, scenic spots, and squares.
Kusa Technology’s cloud control platform features real-time monitoring, trajectory playback, anomaly warning, and data analysis functions, enabling managers to remotely grasp equipment status and task progress, achieving visualization and traceability of the operational process. Based on real-time data from the platform, the system continuously optimizes task strategies and resource scheduling, promoting sanitation management from “experience-driven” to “data intelligence,” continuously improving operational efficiency and service quality.
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Alumni Founders
Yang Xi, Co-founder & CEO of Kusa Technology, a member of the Communist Party of China, holds a master’s degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.Mr. Yang has over 15 years of technical management and operational experience in the chip and automotive electronics fields, with a background in several Fortune 500 technology companies. He was awarded the title of “Influential Figure in the Low-speed Unmanned Driving Industry for 2024”.
Huang Chenbin, Co-founder & Engineering VP of Kusa Technology, a member of the Communist Party of China, holds a master’s degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.Mr. Huang has nearly 20 years of experience in the complete vehicle industry, participating in multiple projects for domestic vehicle localization, new electric vehicle development, mid-term modifications, and special customized vehicles.
Yang Xi, Co-founder and CEO of Kusa Technology
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Antai College of Economics and Management, Master’s Degree, Class of 2014
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Master’s Degree, Class of 2014
Huang Chenbin, Co-founder and Engineering VP of Kusa Technology
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Antai College of Economics and Management, Master’s Degree, Class of 2013
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Mechanical Engineering, Master’s Degree, Class of 2013
Message from the Startup Team：“Reshaping intelligent productivity services.”
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Contact Information
Company Website:www.kusaauto.com
Business Cooperation:[email protected]
Talent Recruitment:[email protected]
Company Address:
Shanghai Headquarters: 3rd Floor, Building A3, Changjiang Delta Green Oasis, No. 99, Jiajie Road, Qingpu District, Shanghai
Beijing: Room 3002, Building 1, No. 4 Courtyard, Beitucheng East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Suzhou: 12th Floor, Building B, Huizhou Building, No. 10, Moon Bay Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Jiangsu Province
Welcome to follow Kusa Technology’s official WeChat account
Image and text source: Kusa Technology
About the “Shanghai Jiao Tong University Artificial Intelligence Alumni Association”
The Shanghai Jiao Tong University Artificial Intelligence Alumni Association was established on January 12, 2019, with the current president being alumnus Jing Xiandong, class of 1994, and chairman of Ant Group. The AI Alumni Association focuses on serving Jiao Tong University alumni in the fields oflarge AI models, embodied intelligence andgeneral artificial intelligence, and has organized multiple activities such as AI innovation, industry integration, and cutting-edge academic sharing since its establishment.
The AI Alumni Association is open to all Jiao Tong University alumni interested in artificial intelligence, hoping to strengthen alumni interaction and communication, promote cooperation among alumni enterprises, and achieve synergy, integration, and development between alumni in AI technology and traditional industries under the organization and promotion of the alumni association.
