Japanese media pay attention to China's "Unicorn" company Vibration Intelligence, which may break the Western monopoly in sensor technology.
According to Japanese media reports, the Chinese startup company Zhen Dian Sensor, which develops vibration sensors, recently raised about 10 million yuan (200 million yen) in angel financing. This investment was led by Rinkaku and participated by Tsinghua Capital. The funds will be used for developing sensors, building a pilot production line, and launching a commercial team.
Vibration Intelligence was founded in 2025 by doctoral graduates from Tsinghua University in China and the University of New South Wales in Australia, and is currently developing new sensor technologies and energy harvesting platforms.
Its main product is a vibration sensor that detects object vibrations, applied in the fault diagnosis of mechanical systems, monitoring of structures such as bridges and pipelines, and maintenance of new energy facilities, among other wide-ranging fields. The founder and CEO, Kang Zhenfeng, predicts, "When the era of large-scale infrastructure construction ends, the maintenance market will grow rapidly, and by 2030, the market size of vibration sensors will expand to 68.6 billion yuan (about 1.4 trillion yen)."
In the vibration sensor market, foreign giants such as American PCB Piezotronics and Danish Brüel & Kjær (B&K) have technological advantages, while Chinese products are concentrated in the mid-to-low price segments. Traditional piezoelectric technology requires an external power supply, thus its use is limited, and there are problems such as difficulty in reducing power consumption by increasing the response frequency and easy data drift. Especially in applications such as superconducting devices and pipelines that require explosion-proof and environmental resistance, the adoption of Chinese-made sensors has made little progress.
Vibration Intelligence uses triboelectric charging technology, combined with resonant microstructures and electret materials, to develop a self-powered vibration sensor. "No external power supply" and "high environmental resistance" solve the problem of expensive and limited usage scenarios of traditional sensors in harsh environments such as mines and long-distance pipelines where power supply is limited. In addition, the design without circuits ensures safety even in places requiring explosion-proof performance.
The company's products have completed operational tests in special environments such as superconducting magnets, pipelines, and wind turbine units, filling the technical gap of domestic sensors in the monitoring field, which requires environmental resistance and magnetic field explosion-proof performance. Currently, the company is developing sensors for special applications and expanding its product line. The company will also develop wireless sensors and energy harvesting to support power supply for smart edge devices.
Investor Rinkaku Venture Capital stated that with the rapid growth of the industrial maintenance market, sensors will play a more important role. He said that Vibration Intelligence's innovative solutions have solved the challenges of traditional sensors and contributed to Chinese sensors entering the high-end field. Major precision manufacturing and wind power companies are also adopting their products, and the company plans to continue supporting the introduction of advanced manufacturing technologies.
Additionally, the Tsinghua Meiyue Alumni Seed Fund evaluated that the application range of Vibration Intelligence's products is extensive and can meet the needs of the Chinese market for "domestic substitution." It is reported that it is expected to list on the Beijing Stock Exchange (BSE) in the future.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1844189536229388/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.