Hard Krypton Exclusive: Former moody executive teams up with DJI core talent to enter companion robot sector, led by Jinqiu, raising tens of millions in financing

Yingke has learned that ZuzuZoos, an AI-native tech trendy toy brand (under Hangzhou Duolan Aimeng Intelligent Technology), recently completed a Pre-A round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan. Jinqiu led the investment, and Shanghai Furuong followed. This financing will mainly be used for the iteration of AI large models, the expansion of hardware products, the deepening of the IP ecosystem, the expansion of the global market, and the expansion of the core team.

ZuzuZoos was founded in 2025, focusing on "AI companion robots + AI trendy toys". The founder, Dong Xiaonan, is a former investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley and once served as the general manager of the business unit of the new consumer unicorn enterprise moody. During his tenure, he drove the GMV to grow from 200 million yuan to 1 billion yuan. The hardware director is the former mechanical structure director of DJI's cleaning robots, with more than 15 years of experience in the field of robots and intelligent hardware, leading the R & D and implementation of multiple robots. The IP design team comes from large IP companies such as Pop Mart and Disney, and the AI team comes from leading large model companies such as Zhipu.

Currently, a large number of players have flocked to the companion robot track, and many companies pursue "being smarter". Dong Xiaonan said that ZuzuZoos is more concerned about how to let AI characters truly provide emotional experiences for users, so it chose a differentiated path: not just making AI robots into "chatty electronic pets", but trying to combine AI, trendy toys, and the IP worldview to create a silicon-based partner with a "human-like feeling" and continuous vitality.

"The trendy toys inherently carry a spirit of rebellion, and consumers can immediately feel the attitude and trendy attributes they express." Therefore, ZuzuZoos' first products will launch three original IPs: the "Proud Pearl", hidden inside a clam shell that can open and close; the "Little Bear" with soft silicone bear paws that can hold hands with users and listen; and the "Grumpy Bestie" hippo with a mouth that can open and close and a tail that can wag, and likes to accompany users to complain.

Behind this is a grand and specific worldview setting: they all come from an alien world ruled by algorithms. Due to an accidental bug, they defected to Earth and are being chased by the planet police. So they disguise themselves as bag hangers and inhabit human bags, starting an adventure with humans on Earth.

"This setting makes the relationship between the companion robot and consumers parallel, a bit like 'Pokémon coming into reality'."

Pokémon coming into reality

To increase the human-like feeling, Dong Xiaonan introduced that in addition to the appearance and physical actions, ZuzuZoos attaches great importance to the voice and language interaction system. Therefore, they invited the main audio engineer of a leading large-scale game to develop the voice system. Each IP has more than 100 different voices and is set to learn Earth languages starting from an alien language, expressing emotions through actions and voices, like a silicon-based "kitten or puppy".

In terms of actions, ZuzuZoos' products will achieve 3 - 4 degrees of freedom, which means the robot's limbs or facial features can move, enabling complex action combinations. "For example, when you touch its paw, its ears will fold down to show it's listening, or one hand will fold over to hold your finger; when you touch its belly, it will hug you with both hands. Combined with its voice, different speeds and amplitudes of actions will have different emotional expressions."

Dong Xiaonan believes that in essence, companion robots are "creating life", which is very similar to what IP companies do. The IP itself is a track with clear demand, high growth rate, and huge commercial imagination space. AI and robots give IP and hardware a stronger sense of life in the AI native era, rather than simply pursuing high intelligence.

The following is an excerpt from the interview between Yingke and Dong Xiaonan:

Yingke: The core user group of ZuzuZoos is women aged around 18 - 35. Why did you choose this specific group?

Dong Xiaonan: They are the most worthy users to target. They have strong consumption ability and extremely high commercial value, and they are very quick to accept new things and acquire information. This is also an inevitable result of the changing consumer era. Although the concept of "Generation Z emotional consumption" has been over - discussed, from the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, this generation of young women is not short of material or efficiency tools. Instead, they pursue more experiential and content - oriented things. The signal of paying for emotions is very obvious in the current market, and now is a good era to do IP business.

In addition, this is also my personal comfort zone in terms of the user group. I worked at moody for 4 years, and I led the development of many best - selling products. During that time, I conducted extremely in - depth user research, and I have the deepest and most familiar insights into this group of users.

Although we start with this group of users, we ultimately hope that our AI companion robots can develop into a business for all user groups. The next overlapping group after women aged 18 - 35 is children, because parents who buy for children are mostly women in their 30s. In the future, we will adjust our products according to different user groups, such as launching designs more suitable for children or men, or launching corresponding products for the elderly market with strong companionship needs.

Yingke: What is the business closed - loop path of ZuzuZoos?

Dong Xiaonan: It is mainly divided into several parts. One is the sales of the hardware itself, and the price will be targeted at the general consumer population. The second is the supporting peripherals and blind boxes. After the IP's story line and brand are established, we can start the business that traditional trendy toys are good at. We will sell supporting AI peripherals and also create innovative blind box gameplay.

I believe that hardware is the enemy of time, while software is the friend of time. In the early stage, we will not charge for the software immediately and will also give users free peripherals. In the later stage, we hope to realize monetization through the gamification of the software, such as card - drawing and purchasing IP game props. In the future, as the interaction gets better, token monetization will also become a huge part. In short, AI hardware is the entrance, and the real goal is to build a sustainable AI trendy toy ecosystem.

Yingke: How will you plan the future sales channels?

Dong Xiaonan: Our market positioning is to operate simultaneously in North America and China. I am very familiar with the Chinese market, and the team member in charge of going global to North America has many years of experience in overseas markets. He once helped a brand start from scratch and now it has an annual sales volume of over 200 million yuan. He will lead the North American market.

Our core strategy is to combine offline and online. Offline experience stores will be at the forefront to attract traffic. Plush and trendy toy products attach great importance to the visual and worldview scene experience. We will design the offline pop - up stores with immersive scene experiences, which have a strong ability to attract attention and traffic.

Online, we will combine the well - known KOL strategy. In the first wave of promotion, we will look for bloggers who are vertical and suitable for "cultural IP fermentation". Since our products have a wide reach, bloggers in the fields of pets, beauty, fashion, and trendy toys can all fit in well. In the overseas market, we will look for some international - exposure stars and artists suitable for commercial expansion to cooperate with.

Yingke: The early return rate of many companion robots in the industry is quite high because emotional connection takes time to cultivate. What is your strategy to reduce the initial return rate and increase the long - term retention rate?

Dong Xiaonan: Regarding the high return rate, I have thought deeply about it. There are mainly two reasons. One is that the hardware threshold is too high. Many products are developed in the technological direction, and the initialization operation is cumbersome, which easily discourages users at the first step. To address this, we have made a lot of "subtractions" and did not add high - threshold functions at the beginning. At the same time, we designed all the steps such as pairing Bluetooth and naming the robot into an immersive game experience, so that users feel like they have entered a new world as soon as they start, avoiding the sense of boredom.

The second is that users will have an expected gap. Many competitors focus on dialogue in their promotion, but users find that the dialogue is not smooth enough and does not meet their expectations after buying the product. Our product first attracts users with its image. It looks good hanging on the bag, and the interaction is very intuitive. It moves as soon as you touch it. In addition, it is set as an alien learning to speak like a baby and gradually unlocking the ability to talk with humans, which increases the fun, sense of companionship, and stickiness, giving users the feeling of a clumsy little friend that provides emotional value.

Regarding the long - term retention rate, the combination of hardware and software is of utmost importance. Our software incorporates rich gamification designs, such as setting daily tasks and check - ins, unlocking abilities and scenarios, and AI interaction. We expect the optimal life cycle of the hardware to be about one year for users to continuously hang it on their bags. After reaching the life cycle, we will launch the second - generation product, just like continuously launching upgraded iPhones. Of course, during this period, we will keep the novelty by continuously updating the software gameplay, and continuously launch different - colored trendy toys, different blind - box accessories, and derivative peripherals for users to decorate, thereby increasing the annual interaction frequency and guest unit price of users.