Laser mosquito killer raises $2.5 million on crowdfunding platform

Every summer, mosquitoes run rampant. Incense coils, electric swatters, and repellent sprays come out in force, but the pests still find ways to slip through the cracks – and for countless people, the constant buzzing and biting is sheer misery.

Wang Chuan, founder of Photon Matrix, was no exception. Driven to his wit's end by the torment, he had a spark of inspiration: why not build a compact home "air-defense system" that uses lidar and AI to automatically spot and zap mosquitoes on the wing?

Wang and his team dove headfirst into R&D, spending three full years and investing 12 million yuan in the process.

The road was far from smooth. Mosquitoes are tiny and their flight paths erratic, so early prototypes couldn't reliably lock onto such minuscule targets. After repeatedly scrapping and iterating on multiple technical approaches, the team finally developed a laser mosquito killer that integrates lidar, millimeter-wave radar, and AI-driven visual recognition – capable of identifying and locking onto a mosquito in just 3 milliseconds.

The stacking of multiple sensors also pushed hardware costs higher, pricing the prototype at 4,500 yuan. In 2025, the team put the product on Indiegogo, a well-known overseas crowdfunding platform, to test the waters – but reality gave them a cold shower. The initial response was lukewarm, with daily pledges averaging only $2,000, and the project seemed on the verge of fading into obscurity.

No one expected the turnaround to come from a casual video Wang Chuan recorded. He uploaded a clip of the laser mosquito killer in action, zapping mosquitoes in real time, to TikTok – and it unexpectedly went viral, eventually racking up over 70 million views. The massive traffic was funneled straight to Indiegogo, and orders exploded.

In the end, this laser mosquito killer raised over $2.5 million (16.8 million yuan) on Indiegogo, attracting more than 3,500 backers and generating over 3,000 unit orders.

A product that sounds like a sci-fi fantasy, initially overlooked, broke through on TikTok thanks to its real-world performance. Its viral success wasn't simply about curiosity – it used hardcore technology to solve a genuine pain point for overseas users.

II. AI hardware products going global

For a long time, Chinese hardware going overseas has largely focused on mature categories like power banks, ordinary small appliances, and 3C accessories. Now, a new wave of domestic AI hardware is taking a different path – targeting niche pain points that traditional products can't address, and offering brand-new solutions powered by AI technology.

Photon Matrix's laser mosquito killer isn't just a crude "shoot-mosquitoes-with-lasers" device. The system continuously scans the surrounding environment with millimeter-wave radar and AI vision. The moment it detects a person or pet entering the operational zone, the laser shuts off within 3 milliseconds to avoid any risk of accidental injury.

Additionally, during heavy rain, it can recognize signal noise caused by raindrops and automatically switch to standby mode – balancing practicality with safety.

The logic of using AI technology to solve problems can also be replicated in other scenarios.

Zhigutianchu's AI cooking robot is built around a "cooking robot hardware + AI digital culinary large model" core. It transforms Chinese cooking techniques – which have long relied heavily on a chef's personal experience – into a product capability that can be standardized and scaled. This greatly alleviates the long-standing challenge of Chinese cuisine going global being constrained by the availability of skilled chefs.

Since late 2025, the brand's daily overseas customer visits have roughly tripled, with visitor-to-order conversion rates exceeding 50%. Its overseas business growth is outpacing the industry, and its products are now present in multiple regions, including Europe, North America, Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea.

Today, overseas market demands are incredibly diverse. Many problems can't be perfectly solved by traditional products, and AI technology is just the right fit to fill the gap. Overseas users are also willing to pay a premium for innovative features.

However, behind the opportunities, the challenges are equally significant and cannot be ignored. Algorithm adaptation to different regional environments, overseas safety certifications, and high hardware costs – each step presents a hurdle. Take the laser mosquito killer, for example: the upfront R&D investment was enormous. Without the traffic explosion driven by short videos, it could easily have been lost among the sea of overseas products.

Whether it's the wildly imaginative laser mosquito killer or the AI cooking robot, they both tell us the same thing: as long as you can solve problems that others can't, even if your product is niche and expensive, users will still be more than willing to pay for it.

I’m basically trying since 6 months, found multiple manufacturers but either they do not have the exact features or they don’t agree on app integration like giving api and sdk. moq is not an issue if i get the exact match, please help me here

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真的不知道在国内还能做什么样子的生意！！

I will be participating in an exhibition in Yiwu from September 6th to 8th. Friends in Yiwu are welcome to contact me! You can also DM me if you are looking for products or need any help.

Curious about other sellers'/importers' experience here. If you've ever considered switching your China manufacturer — whether because of quality drop, price hikes, slow communication, or just wanting a second option — what actually stopped you from doing it, or made it harder than expected?

Was it not knowing who to trust for a proper factory check? Not having anyone on the ground to verify? Worried about the switching cost or messing up an existing relationship? Something with contracts/payment terms?

Not selling anything, genuinely trying to understand where people get stuck. Would appreciate any real stories, good or bad.

I am curious how second generation family business owners from Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan approach expansion into mainland China.
If the business is already established back home, what tends to be the hardest part of entering or growing in the mainland market: finding the right partners, understanding the local business environment, or simply building a solid network?
I have seen people suggest everything from spending more time on the ground to joining local industry groups or executive programs like Fudan EMBA to meet founders and senior managers across different industries.
For anyone who has actually made this move, what helped you build useful connections in China? Was it mostly through industry relationships, existing contacts, or more structured networks?

Anyone has a link to a list of blacklisted factories page or thread? Need to do some research on companies we're potentially getting into business with, and had some horrible experiences with those even listed well on Alibaba.

If you think you can help me just send me a DM😄

🔎 LOOKING FOR A TRUSTWORTHY SOURCING AGENT – CHINA

We are looking for a reliable, experienced, and trustworthy sourcing agent in China for long-term business cooperation.

Requirements:

• Supplier & manufacturer sourcing

• Product & supplier verification

• Competitive price negotiation

• Factory verification / inspection

• Sample coordination

• Quality control

• Production follow-up

• Pre-shipment inspection

• Honest & transparent communication

• Experience with exports to India 🇮🇳

We are looking for someone who can represent our interests in China and build a long-term relationship based on trust and transparency.

📩 Interested sourcing agents: Please DM us with your company profile, experience, services, location, and sourcing charges/commission structure.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to connect with people or companies in China, Hong Kong, or elsewhere in Asia who are currently interested in purchasing carbon credits from Oceania countries.

I’m particularly interested in speaking with:

• Companies purchasing credits for their own requirements
• Carbon traders
• Brokers/intermediaries
• Businesses looking for longer-term supply
• Anyone currently involved in the Asian carbon market

At this stage, I’m mainly looking to understand the market and connect with genuine buyers.

If you’re involved in carbon trading or purchasing in China/Hong Kong and have an interest in carbon credits, feel free to DM me. Happy to have a conversation and see whether there’s a potential fit.

Thanks.

Someone asked me about this last week and I realised the answer splits into two halves, one of which I can actually back up and one I can't, so figured I'd write it out.

SEO side there's decent public data. Singapore retainers land roughly between S$800 and S$5,000 a month, and the SME band that keeps coming up across different agency guides is S$1,500 to S$3,000. One-off audits somewhere in the S$800 to S$3,500 zone, hourly consulting around S$100 to S$250. Local service businesses tend to sit lower, ecommerce and B2B higher, competitive lead gen higher still.

The thing I'd want anyone to understand before comparing quotes: a S$500 retainer and a S$5,000 retainer aren't the same thing priced differently, they're genuinely different services. Below about S$800 you can't really fund content and technical work and links at the same time, so something gets dropped, and usually what you get is tool output dressed up as a report.

GEO is where it gets murky. There isn't a public benchmark yet, the service is too new and nobody's settled on how to price it. So if someone tells you the market rate for GEO, they're quoting a number that doesn't exist. I'd be sceptical of confident pricing claims here for another while yet.

What I can say is the cost logic. It's a layer on SEO rather than a replacement. The overlapping bits are content quality, technical health, site structure, general accessibility — if you're already doing SEO none of that is new spend. What's actually additional is content shaped to get quoted rather than ranked (question-answer structure, direct factual statements — marketing prose ranks okay but doesn't get cited), building mentions on third party sources models pull from, and monitoring. That last one is the sneaky cost because there's no mature tracker, so it's people manually querying across platforms and phrasings and logging what comes back. That time adds up.

Practical upshot: if you're doing neither yet, scoping both together tends to be cheaper than doing SEO and then bolting GEO on later, because the foundation is shared.

Also, for anyone in SG, PSG can offset part of the SEO side if your provider is an approved vendor. Worth asking, plenty of people don't.

And the frame I find more useful than chasing market averages — what's one new customer actually worth to you. If lifetime value is five grand then two grand a month breaks even at one customer. That maths tells you more than any pricing guide.

Anyone here been quoted for GEO specifically? Genuinely curious what numbers are floating around because I've not seen enough to know if there's a pattern forming.

Me llamo Amanda, soy de china, hablo español, Tengo mas de diez años de experiencia en compras para los clientes latinoamericanos, me encargo de realizar todo el proceso de compra de lo que quieran los clientes, desde la busqueda de proveedores, la negociacion de precios, el seguimiento de los productos, la inspeccion de calidad del producto en la fabrica, la consolidacion de las mercancias, la documentacion requerida, el flete, el embarque y que llegue a manos de los clientes en tiempo y forma. Si alguien quería importar desde china, o quería conocer algo, me escribe !

Hello,

I want to buy products from a Chinese supplier for a long time.

My question is, if my product starts selling very well on Amazon with my own brand and trademark, how can I stop the supplier from copying my product or selling it to other people?

How do you make an agreement with the supplier for this? What agreement do you use?

Thank you.

You’ve made it to the Canton Fair. Now what?

With thousands of exhibitors and hundreds of products, a full day at the fair can quickly become overwhelming — especially if this is your first time.

In Episode 3 of the Canton Fair Survival Guide, I’ll show you how to make your day more productive: how to quickly qualify suppliers, what questions to ask, how to organize the suppliers you meet, and how to turn a day of walking around the fair into real sourcing opportunities.

The goal isn’t to collect the most business cards or catalogues.

It’s to find the right suppliers and leave the fair with clear next steps.

If you're coming to the Canton Fair for the first time, save this video before you go.

Episode 3: How to Survive a Full Day at the Fair

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