With annual revenue tripling, a Shenzhen dark horse has emerged in the stir-frying robot market.

Intelligent cooking robots are shedding their "conceptual labels" and are on the verge of large-scale application.

As brands such as Laoxiangji and JD 7FRESH have fully adopted stir-frying robots, the leading effect in the industry has become apparent. A group of catering owners who were once hesitant about stir-frying robots are now actively approaching the company.

The increase in market confidence is also directly reflected in capital trends. Yingke learned that Zhigu Tianchu, a cooking robot company, recently completed tens of millions of yuan in Series A financing, with the investor being Qifu Capital. Meanwhile, the company will complete a brand upgrade and officially change its name to "Qianyi Intelligence" at the beginning of 2026. Since its establishment, the company has received multiple rounds of financing from well-known institutions such as Yunqi Capital, with a cumulative financing amount of over 100 million yuan.

Behind the heating up of the industry, product stability, scenario adaptability, operational efficiency, and the overall service ability of solutions are becoming the dividing lines in the new round of competition. In this traditional industry worth trillions but with a very low level of digitalization, the revolution of intelligent cooking has just begun.

An 8-person team secures the industry's largest order of 150 million yuan

Statistics from the Flush investment advisor platform show that in 2024, the market scale of China's intelligent cooking machine industry reached 12.61 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.80%. Among them, the commercial sector accounted for 57.23%, and the chain catering and group meal sectors became the main areas of penetration.

In the process of intelligent stir-frying robots evolving from "usable" to "user-friendly", the ability to accurately respond to the differentiated needs of different markets is the key to measuring a company's core competitiveness.

Currently, Zhigu Tianchu divides its business into three major sectors: domestic social catering, domestic group meals, and overseas markets, and has established an efficient and refined operation system centered around customer scenarios.

An investor from Qifu Capital analyzed, "With the mutual support of consumption scenarios and industry needs, this diversified and coordinated business system with risk dispersion can not only improve the stability of the revenue structure and the ability to resist cycles but also strengthen Zhigu Tianchu's comprehensive adaptability and continuous growth momentum in a volatile market environment."

It is worth mentioning that Zhigu Tianchu has successfully reached in-depth cooperation with large enterprises such as Muyuan, Goertek, and Foxconn, and won a record single order of 150 million yuan in the industry.

In the view of Goertek Group, the cooperation with Zhigu Tianchu is not just a purchase order for stir-frying robots but a joint exploration of a complete intelligent kitchen solution by both parties.

The logistics manager of Goertek Group told Yingke, "During the project sourcing stage, we put forward many challenging functional requirements, which were initially judged as impossible and unrealistic by many suppliers. However, Zhigu Tianchu responded to all of them and demonstrated satisfactory professionalism and execution ability during the cooperation process."

In terms of organizational structure, different from the traditional large-scale manpower approach, Zhigu Tianchu's sales team consists of only 8 people. They mainly acquire customers accurately through new media operations and building content matrices. Combined with diversified channels such as recommendations from old customers, the company expects that the order amount will exceed 300 million yuan in 2026, including continuous repurchases from multiple industry-leading customers.

This lightweight and high-efficiency operation model centered around products and word-of-mouth enables the company to focus its superior resources on the R & D sector. Currently, the R & D team accounts for more than 60% of the total staff, forming a positive cycle of "R & D driving growth and word-of-mouth driving repurchases".

Diversified scenario layout + R & D drive to build core barriers

When the controversy over pre-packaged dishes exposes the contradiction between catering standardization and consumers' "freshly stir-fried" needs, and the expansion of chain brands is limited by the fluctuation of chefs' skills and high labor costs, intelligent stir-frying robots are becoming the key variable to solve the "efficiency - taste - cost" trilemma.

Nowadays, from the purchase of single robots to the overall intelligent upgrade of kitchens, Zhigu Tianchu can provide customers with a one-stop overall solution to help catering enterprises reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve the well - being of employees.

The core advantage of the Zhigu team lies in its profound hardware background and in - depth industry insight. The founder, Geng Kaiping, has been deeply involved in the industry for 20 years and closely cooperates with senior catering experts, forming a rare "technology R & D + scenario implementation" dual - wheel drive model in the industry, which fundamentally realizes the in - depth integration of products with actual kitchen scenarios.

Based on the three major business sectors, the company's product architecture also revolves around multiple scenarios such as group meals, chain catering, and overseas markets, forming a clear functional gradient and market positioning.

An investor from Qifu Capital told Yingke that this is also one of the core reasons for their choice of Zhigu Tianchu. The complete product matrix can accurately match the diverse needs of the catering industry.

More importantly, in the catering industry that highly depends on stable operations, the reliability of robots is often the "veto power" for brands to choose suppliers.

"Zhigu Tianchu has done a very in - depth job in product definition and has extremely strict control over the supply chain and manufacturing quality," the above - mentioned investor pointed out. "But more importantly, they have built a real closed - loop in the collaboration between AI and hardware."

The Zhigu team's independently developed AI dynamic heat algorithm and full premixed combustion technology, combined with multi - channel sensors and the intelligent kitchen cloud platform, form an integrated solution of "hardware + software + data".

Mechanical arm feeding, fully automatic operation

"Therefore, when customers conduct on - site tests, their intelligent stir - frying robots also show stronger stability, far exceeding similar products. This is not only an advantage in manufacturing technology but also the result of their in - depth integration of AI and hardware - which is also the key to obtaining continuous repurchases from leading customers," said the investor from Qifu Capital.

In this process, stir - frying robots are not simply replacing chefs with machines but are trying a new "human - machine collaboration" model.

This is also the evolutionary direction that Zhigu Tianchu is actively exploring. Since last year, the company has formed an embodied intelligence team led by post - 90s doctors, dedicated to the research and development of a "catering embodied brain". By collecting and analyzing cooking process data from different cuisines, regions, and scenarios, and combining AI technologies such as reinforcement learning, it realizes intelligent decision - making and autonomous optimization of stir - frying robots in terms of heat control and production processes.

"What we are building is not just a commercial stir - frying robot but a 'cooking brain' that deeply understands the catering logic and continuously evolves," said a business partner of Zhigu Tianchu.

In his view, the integration of technological innovation ability and catering practical experience is the key leap to truly realize the transformation of intelligent cooking from "feature phones" to "smartphones". As the ability of the catering embodied brain improves, Zhigu Tianchu is gradually upgrading from a robot equipment supplier to a provider of intelligent kitchen overall solutions.

Accelerating overseas expansion to seize the global market worth hundreds of billions

Currently, with high overseas wages, a shortage of chefs, and the increasing requirements for catering hygiene standards in the post - pandemic era, intelligent cooking robots show strong growth potential in overseas scenarios.

In the process of global expansion, Zhigu Tianchu also demonstrates extreme efficiency and precise control of scenarios. A business partner of Zhigu Tianchu revealed to Yingke that since October this year, the average daily number of visits from overseas market customers has increased by three to four times, and the overall transaction rate can reach 50%.

Zhigu Tianchu's exploration of the overseas market takes advantage of the strategy of "China's manufacturing + large - scale infrastructure going global", creating opportunities for the development of the overseas group meal market.

Due to the long overseas service radius and the difficulty of local support, the company has built a comprehensive service system of "modular products + local hardware support + remote software services". In areas where grid - based services are difficult to implement, the modular design reduces the maintenance threshold, and local maintenance support is provided to customers. Combined with remote software operation and maintenance, the stable operation of products is ensured.

Currently, this model has been successfully implemented in many countries and regions such as North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

From a company with mature cooking robot technology to a leading enterprise in intelligent kitchen overall solutions, and now aiming to become a global leading provider of full - stack intelligent kitchen solutions, Zhigu Tianchu's development path clearly outlines an industrial upgrading trajectory from "hard" to "soft" and from "point" to "surface".

"With China's strong manufacturing capabilities, simple products are easily homogenized and standardized. Therefore, in the next stage, what enterprises compete on must be the service ability of overall solutions + supply chain. Zhigu Tianchu not only has this advantage but also has more possibilities in business models, opening up broad imagination space for it in supply chain integration, catering data services, and other aspects," said the investor from Qifu Capital.

Zhigu Tianchu is going from China to the world, redefining the global paradigm of intelligent kitchens.