In einem halben Jahr wurden über zehn Milliarden Yuan an Finanzierungen beschafft, und das Kapital jagt wild nach humanoiden Robotern.
From the song "Rice Seedling BOT" at the 2025 Snake Year Gala, to the successive robot marathons and robot fighting championships, and then to the presentation of over 80 humanoid robot companies at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, 2025 was undoubtedly the year when humanoid robots came into the spotlight.
As they gained popularity, capital investors also made offers one after another. The star company Unitree Technology has started preparations for an IPO and has a valuation of over 12 billion yuan. It has a good chance of becoming the new market - capitalization leader on the STAR Market. "The first publicly - listed humanoid robot provider", Ubtech Robotics, has launched its fifth refinancing plan.
Since July, there has been an investment event in the entire humanoid robot field on average every 1.5 to 2 days. Billion - yuan - scale financings have now become the norm.
Capital is betting on the future of humanoid robots, but the difficulties in mass production and commercial marketing are the current reality. The hotter the capital markets get, the more the self - financing ability of companies and their complete business logics will be tested.
15.3 billion yuan of hot money flows in, a financing event every 2 days
Historical moments are constantly being created at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference.
Compared with the 18 companies last year, the number of exhibitor companies in the humanoid robot field has increased manifold this year. Over 80 companies have jointly demonstrated their capabilities.
Boxing, playing ice hockey, grabbing tofu, writing calligraphy... Humanoid robots have achieved an innovative breakthrough from "movement" to "utilization", and their application areas are constantly expanding.
For example, the two - legged humanoid service robot XMAN - F1 from Keenon Robotics showed its ability at the fair to smoothly make popcorn and prepare various drinks according to customers' wishes, and it also offers options like "with ice or without".
The so - called "social outlier" Lingxi X2 is small, but it can master difficulties such as walking, running, jumping, cycling, and lifting weights. It is also equipped with a multimodal interaction model and can show human behaviors like "looking curiously" and "scratching".
Shanghai Electric has presented a humanoid robot with the development concept of "Industrial Genes · Scenario - specific Adaptation". It is 1.67 meters tall, weighs 50 kilograms, and has 38 degrees of freedom. It can act flexibly in different industrial environments and autonomously recognize, position, and transport various boxes, which significantly improves the efficiency of warehouse operations.
The rapid progress shows that humanoid robots are evolving from "ornaments" to "helpers". The industry is at a turning point.
Source: Official of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference
Driven by the dual forces of technology and capital, the humanoid robot industry is experiencing an unprecedented wave of financing. In 2025, the enthusiasm for this field has increased significantly, and it has become the focus of global investors.
The number of financing events has increased dramatically. According to data, as of today in 2025, 108 financing and investment events have been carried out in the humanoid robot field, and the volume has reached 15.35 billion yuan.
Since July, the pace of financing in the entire field has accelerated even further. On average, there is an investment event in the humanoid robot field every 1.5 to 2 days.
These data clearly show that more and more capital is flowing into the humanoid robot field, and the attractiveness of the industry is constantly growing.
New records are also being set repeatedly in terms of financing amounts.
Billion - yuan - scale financings have become the norm, and there are often large - scale financing events. Among them are also world - leading investment companies such as Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital. Shenzhen Yuejiang Technology Co., Ltd. has announced the successful implementation of a targeted capital increase, in which a total of HK$1.037 billion was raised. Shenzhen Zhongqing Robot Technology Co., Ltd. has successively completed the Pre - A++ round and the A1 round of financing, and the total volume has reached nearly 1 billion yuan. Companies such as Zhiyuan Innovation (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Zhujidongli Technology Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Yun Shenchu Technology Co., Ltd. also reported their financing progress in July, with the amount of each individual financing exceeding 100 million yuan.
Of course, the star companies are also included. After the song "Rice Seedling BOT" was successful at the 2025 Snake Year Gala, Unitree Technology has become a "sensation" in the world of humanoid robots. It has not only attracted the wide attention of the consumer market and triggered a wave of robot rentals, but is also in high demand in the capital markets.
Current financing status of Unitree Technology
Companies like China Mobile, Lei Jun (Shunwei Capital), Tencent, Alibaba, and Ant Group have rushed to invest in the company. As a result, the valuation of Unitree Technology after the Series - C round has increased to 12 billion yuan. Recently, the China Securities Regulatory Commission officially announced that Unitree Technology has started preparations for an IPO. Some media speculate that Unitree Technology is likely to be listed on the STAR Market. Given its current valuation, Unitree Technology has a good chance of becoming the new market - capitalization leader on the STAR Market.
The already publicly - listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange "first publicly - listed humanoid robot company", Ubtech Robotics, is taking advantage of the favorable situation to strengthen its strength. On July 22, Ubtech Robotics, which has been listed on the stock exchange for 19 months, issued an announcement that it is launching its fifth refinancing plan. It plans to place about 3,015,545 new H - shares at a price of HK$82 per share to raise about HK$2.473 billion. After deducting relevant costs and expenses, the net proceeds from the capital increase are about HK$2.41 billion.
The leading companies are in high demand from capital investors due to their advanced technology, strong teams, and good market prospects, which further increases the valuation of the industry.
To conquer the billion - scale market, mass production must be solved first
Since the beginning of this year, the humanoid robot industry has experienced a rapid increase in both capital attractiveness and market orders. On July 11, China Mobile applied to buy small two - legged humanoid robots, computing power backpacks, and five - fingered grippers from Unitree Technology for 46.05 million yuan. This is the largest public single order in the humanoid robot field in China and means that the "state intervention" is promoting the commercial mass - marketability of humanoid robots once again.
In the long run, EVTank expects that the global demand for humanoid robots will reach 18 million units by 2035, and the market volume will reach 1.5 trillion yuan. Morgan Stanley also expects that humanoid robots will be "widely used" in China in the second half of 2025.
Source: New Strategy
Policy and perspectives are making the voice louder and louder that 2025 is the "year of mass production" for the humanoid robot industry. However, the reality is that although the humanoid robot industry has made remarkable progress in technological development and capital raising, there are still many challenges in mass production and commercial marketing.
In terms of production processes, the manufacturing of humanoid robots requires complex technologies in the fields of mechanics, electronics, and software. The requirements for production processes are extremely high.
"Currently, the production of most humanoid robot companies still depends on manual labor. Although there are no major problems in small - scale production, problems such as low productivity and unstable product quality occur in mass production." An employee of a humanoid robot company revealed this.
The capacity bottlenecks of key components also hinder the progress of mass production of humanoid robots. Take the planetary roller screw as an example. As one of the key components of humanoid robots, its manufacturing processes are complex, the technical threshold is high, and the number of suppliers with mass - production capabilities is limited.
Currently, the production of the planetary roller screw still depends on manual labor, which leads to a significant capacity shortage and can hardly meet the market demand. In addition, there are similar capacity problems with other key components such as servo motors, gears, and sensors. Therefore, the manufacturing costs of the entire robot remain high, and the pricing policy is dominated by a few companies, so the negotiation room is very limited.
For humanoid robot companies, they not only need to make significant innovations and improvements in production processes but also strengthen support for key component suppliers to promote more suppliers with mass - production capabilities to ensure a stable supply of components.
Elon Musk has announced that the mass production of Optimus is expected to start in 2026.
In terms of commercial marketing, the mature application areas for humanoid robots are relatively limited, and most are still in the demonstration and pilot phases.
For example, the song "Rice Seedling BOT" at the 2025 Snake Year Gala made the humanoid robots from Unitree Technology world - famous overnight and boosted the consumer and rental markets. However, as the enthusiasm waned, the price of the products on the secondary market dropped sharply. This may to some extent show that the performance and spectator scenarios are not enough to open up a broader consumer market.
In other application areas, humanoid robots can also be used only very limitedly. For example, Fourier Intelligence entered the medical rehabilitation robot market in 2017. In the elderly care scenario, the humanoid robot can accompany the elderly and monitor their health to some extent. However, due to the complex physical conditions and needs of the elderly, there are still obvious deficiencies in handling emergencies and providing individual care services.
In the education industry, Ubtech Robotics has already used its humanoid robots for pilot teaching in schools. As a teaching aid, it can offer students a new learning experience. However, currently, the teaching content and method are not rich and flexible enough to fully meet the teaching requirements.
In addition, the ability for "integrated hardware and software delivery" is still a problem in the industry. Humanoid robots not only need to have advanced hardware but also a strong software system to realize their intelligent functions. Currently, many companies have deficiencies in the joint development of hardware and software, which leads to problems such as incompatibility between software and hardware and poor system stability, and affects the user experience and product promotion.
Currently, the humanoid robot industry is in a critical phase full of opportunities and challenges. The recent wave of financing shows the high evaluation of capital providers for the future development potential of this field. However, the difficulties in mass production and commercial marketing of the industry also objectively exist. To go from idea to reality, from the laboratory to the market, the humanoid robot industry still needs patience.