Author: Nancy, PANews

Andrew Kang, a star investor who was once active in the crypto market, is shifting his focus to the AI and robotics sector. On May 20, Andrew Kang announced that he has officially taken on the role of CEO of RoboStrategy, responsible for the company's strategic direction and portfolio management.

RoboStrategy, an innovative fund inspired by the capital model of crypto DAT company Strategy, recently listed on Nasdaq and secured equity financing commitments of up to $2 billion, quickly attracting market attention.

Shifting focus from encryption to robotics, with investments in star companies like Figure.

RoboStrategy is a publicly traded closed-end fund focused on robotics and physical AI. It was co-founded by Andrew Kang and Marc Weinstein in 2025 with the goal of opening up early-stage robotics investment opportunities, which were previously only available to a few institutions, to a wider range of ordinary investors.

Andrew Kang and Marc Weinstein are also co-founders of the crypto investment firm Mechanism Capital. Since its founding in 2020, Mechanism Capital has invested in over 100 crypto projects, including well-known protocols and platforms such as Arbitrum, Pendle, Near, Deribit, and 1inch. However, according to publicly available information, Mechanism Capital has rarely disclosed new crypto investment activities since October 2025. Andrew Kang recently admitted that he has not been closely monitoring the crypto market in the past few months.

In contrast, he devoted more of his energy to the robotics field. According to Andrew Kang, he began researching the robotics industry two years ago, but at the time, most VCs advised against entering this sector. In the market environment at the time, robotics companies generally faced difficulties in securing funding, the industry lacked mature, large-scale success stories, and there were many doubts about its commercialization path, technological implementation capabilities, and potential market space.

However, in his view, the accelerated development of physical AI will fundamentally transform the entire industry. Humanoid robots are one of the few areas with the potential to "go from zero to a multi-trillion dollar market," and their development stage is similar to that of Bitcoin in 2013, but with a much larger long-term market potential. In particular, as the manufacturing, logistics, and service industries continue to face labor shortages, physical AI and robotics technologies are rapidly entering real-world industrial scenarios.

Therefore, in February 2024, Andrew Kang completed his first major investment in the robotics field, investing $19 million in Figure AI. Today, Figure AI has become one of the world's highest-valued humanoid robotics companies, with a latest valuation of $39 billion, compared to its pre-investment valuation of only about $2 billion in February 2024. (Related reading: Entrepreneurs from Farms: After Building Flying Cars, They Bet a $39 Billion Giant in the Robotics Race )

However, Andrew Kang also recognizes that the future development of the robotics industry will heavily rely on substantial long-term capital, which cannot be sustained by individuals or traditional funds alone. At the same time, robotics startups need long-term capital platforms that truly understand the industry's needs to help them secure continuous funding, industry resources, and market recognition. More importantly, current robotics innovation is primarily concentrated in the private equity market, making it difficult for most ordinary investors to participate.

Based on this, Andrew Kang co-founded RoboStrategy. To date, RoboStrategy has invested in robotics companies such as Figure AI, Apptronik, Dyna Robotics, Dexmate, Standard Bots, and Path Robotics, covering multiple fields including hardware, infrastructure, and software, with an average investment size of approximately $7 million per round.

According to Andrew Kang, RoboStrategy possesses several differentiated advantages compared to traditional VCs. First, as a closed-end fund, its capital is perpetual, without the time constraints of traditional VC funds, allowing it to invest in the robotics and physical AI industries from a very long-term perspective. Second, the team comprises many seasoned professionals in the robotics industry, including industry experts who have long served as founders or operators, making it considered by many startups as one of the most professional and knowledgeable investment institutions in the robotics field. Furthermore, leveraging its strengths in digital marketing and social media, RoboStrategy not only has stronger fund distribution capabilities but is also better at expanding market influence and industry recognition, thereby helping its portfolio companies gain more attention, talent, and resources.

Listing on Nasdaq, attempting to replicate the Strategy Capital flywheel.

RoboStrategy, the first closed-end fund designed specifically for public market investors, officially began trading on Nasdaq on May 11, with the ticker symbol "BOT". As of now, BOT's share price is approximately $28.20, a drop of about 21.58% since its IPO.

Public records show that RoboStrategy board member Jason Zhao purchased 400,000 shares of the company at $10 per share last October; subsequently, Andrew Kang also purchased 246,000 shares at the same price. Meanwhile, investment advisory firm FP Strategies LLC continued to increase its holdings by 290,000 shares at $10 per share in April of this year, bringing its total holdings to approximately 390,000 shares.

From the perspective of capital operation logic, RoboStrategy is inspired by Strategy's Bitcoin Treasury model, which continuously increases its Bitcoin holdings with low-cost funds by issuing stocks and convertible bonds in the public capital market and forms a capital flywheel by leveraging stock price premiums. This model has been imitated by a large number of companies.

RoboStrategy is attempting to replicate this logic in the robotics sector. The fund's core idea is to continuously raise funds through three main financing tools—CEF, PIPE, and ATM—when the fund's share price is trading at a premium to its net asset value (NAV), and then invest the funds in high-growth robotics and physical AI private companies, thereby building a RISE Capital compound flywheel.

The term RISE stands for four stages:

• Raise (raising funds): Issuing shares at a premium when the market price is higher than NAV to raise more cash;

• Invest: Allocate funds to high-belief robotics projects through thorough due diligence;

• Scale: Investee companies accelerate their expansion with the help of new capital, driving the fund's NAV growth;

• Expand: As NAV increases and industry popularity rises, it further attracts investors and new capital, expanding the fund's size and influence.

This model essentially utilizes the dual pricing mechanism of closed-end fund market price and net asset value, aiming to achieve compound growth of NAV per share in the long term, while replacing the fees of traditional multi-tiered private equity funds with a single public fund structure.

Just this month, RoboStrategy signed a committed equity financing agreement (CEF) of up to $2 billion with Roth Principal Investments, a subsidiary of Roth Capital Partners, to support its strategic growth initiatives.

However, just as the financial stories of most crypto DAT companies are unsustainable, RoboStrategy also faces risks that cannot be ignored.

As of March 31, 2026, RoboStrategy's NAV was approximately $7.31 per share, with total net assets of approximately $145.5 million. Based on the current share price, the market is trading at a valuation premium of nearly 3 times. However, a high premium does not guarantee the absence of a discount risk. Furthermore, since the fund's investments are primarily in unlisted robotics companies, asset valuations are inherently subjective, and liquidity is limited, with exit strategies heavily reliant on IPOs or M&A deals. If the capital environment cools, these assets may face valuation adjustment pressures.

In addition, the closed-end fund structure means that investors cannot redeem their shares at any time like open-end funds, and can only trade through the secondary market, so price fluctuations are often amplified.

Whether RoboStrategy can maintain its high premium and market popularity in the long term remains to be seen and will require further market validation.

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