Eine Rasenmäher-Roboterkonzerne hat über 100 Millionen Yuan an Finanzierungen erhalten und Bestellungen im Wert von Hunderten von Millionen Yuan erworben, um sich auf den Garten-Embodied-Terminal zu konzentrieren | Hard Krypton Exclusive

Autor | Huang Nan

Redakteur | Yuan Silai

Hard Kr has learned that the intelligent garden robot company "Changyao Innovation" recently completed a Series A+ financing of tens of millions of yuan. The leading investor is Yingfeng Environment, a listed company in the Midea system, and the old shareholders continued to increase their investment. The funds will be mainly invested in technological R & D iteration, mass production and delivery of multiple SKUs, and expansion of the product matrix, continuously strengthening the supply chain capabilities and improving the global channel layout. Previously, the company completed its Series A financing in December 2025, and the cumulative financing amount exceeded 100 million yuan in half a year.

Changyao Innovation was founded in 2022 and has long been focused on the outdoor garden intelligent hardware track, concentrating on the R & D, design and manufacturing of boundary - free lawn mowing robots. Relying on its independent technological R & D and scenario - based innovation capabilities, the company builds a full - fledged intelligent garden ecosystem around the lawn maintenance scenario.

According to reports from Euromonitor and others, in 2024, the global sales of lawn mowing robots accounted for 9.1% of the total lawn mower sales, which is at a relatively low level. Looking at different regions, the stock penetration rate in the European market has reached 20% - 30%, with a relatively high popularity rate, but there is still a vast space for the replacement of boundary - free products; in North America, the lawn area of households is large and the terrain is complex, and the penetration rate is less than 2%, making it a key market for future expansion.

As the garden robot market continues to heat up, the competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Facing the increasingly homogeneous price war and function stacking, behind the market differentiation is that the existing product capabilities are difficult to meet the in - depth needs of users. Hu Yue, the founder of Changyao Innovation, told Hard Kr, "Users don't just want a running lawn mower, but a beautiful lawn. The best way to break through the competition is to keep innovating and creating better products. The industry leader often wins by large - scale cost advantages, while the second - ranked company defeats competitors through product and channel differentiation."

This idea is fully reflected in the latest flagship product of Changyao Innovation, the Tron Ultra series of lawn mowing robots.

The Tron Ultra series is equipped with the industry's first four - wheel independent drive and independent steering system, allowing each wheel to rotate independently at any angle. This enables the robot to achieve complex movement modes such as in - place rotation, lateral translation, and diagonal movement, effectively coping with the movement dead angles that traditional lawn mowing robots are difficult to overcome, and completely solving the problems of grass grinding, edge dead angles, and getting out of trouble in complex lawn scenarios. This breakthrough innovation introduces the complex chassis solution from the automotive field into the robot industry for the first time.

Tron series lawn mowing robots avoid grass grinding at the boundaries (Source: Company)

In terms of engineering implementation, to balance compact space, off - road passability, reliability, and cost, the R & D team of Changyao Innovation independently developed an integrated design of the in - wheel motor and the independent steering knuckle, eliminating the traditional mechanical steering tie - rod and significantly reducing the number of moving parts. Coupled with the upgraded AI visual navigation system and the original grass - crushing module, the response speed, failure rate, and maintenance cost of the whole machine have been significantly optimized.

Currently, the Tron Ultra series has completed R & D and engineering verification and will officially start global sales in the middle of this year. Changyao Innovation said that it will continue to use "product differentiation × channel differentiation" as the dual engines to establish a clear brand recognition in the mid - to high - end lawn mowing robot market.

In addition to online channels, Changyao has long been focused on building offline professional channels in Europe and North America, including regional garden equipment specialty stores and gardening supplies chain networks, to form a relatively stable shipment forecast.

Hard Kr has learned that as of now, Changyao Innovation's offline channel orders in Europe have increased by more than five times compared with the same period last year, and the new lawn mowing robot products have received tens of millions of yuan in intended orders.

Tron series lawn mowing robots (Source: Company)

Currently, the garden robot track is experiencing a paradigm shift from "single - function tools" to "scenario - based platforms". From hardware iteration to ecosystem construction, Changyao Innovation's imagination of the garden goes far beyond just lawn mowing.

While some manufacturers are still focused on the continuous iteration of wheeled chassis and single lawn - mowing functions, Changyao Innovation has chosen a different path. "When the technical barriers of single functions and scenarios are gradually diluted by the maturity of the supply chain, users need an intelligent system that can coordinate and manage the entire garden space," Hu Yue said. "There are many tasks in the garden. What we need to do is not just the lawn - mowing scenario. We will use a new form different from all current wheeled chassis designs to implement a consumer - level embodied terminal for the first time in the gardening industry, to change the pattern of the garden and reshape the 'second living room' lifestyle in Europe and America."

Following is an excerpt from an interview between Hard Kr and Hu Yue, the founder of Changyao Innovation (slightly edited):

Hard Kr: Currently, Europe is still the main market. Has the US market started to gain momentum in the past six months?

Hu Yue: The European market has a stable foundation. Although the US market has started to grow slowly this year, the overall growth rate is still relatively slow, which is also a common problem that the entire industry is currently trying to solve. Many brands seem to have entered the online channels of large - scale supermarkets in North America, but currently, they are still mostly in the stage of brand exposure and initial establishment of user awareness.

According to our actual observation, the stereotypes of American users towards Chinese hardware brands going global are still deeply ingrained. They generally think that Chinese products are just affordable alternatives, and the high - end and brand - building awareness is still in the establishment stage.

This also means that in the eyes of overseas users, most Chinese hardware companies are actually on the same starting line - even large domestic companies have a very low recognition among ordinary American consumers, which is seriously inconsistent with their scale. The advantage is that everyone has a similar starting line, and the disadvantage is that the label of "cheap and low - end" is difficult to remove in the short term.

Tron series lawn mowing robots (Source: Company)

Hard Kr: There is a lot of talk about the "involution" in the domestic lawn mowing robot track. How do you judge the current competitive stage of the industry?

Hu Yue: Currently, the industry has entered the elimination stage, far from the initial warm - up stage. It places extremely high requirements on the comprehensive strength of enterprises, supply chain management, local services, and the establishment of a global sales network. However, many players are still stuck in shallow involution: they rush to pile up technologies, compete on parameters, and engage in price wars. They start involuting too early and too superficially, competing in the superficial red ocean, but are reluctant to explore the blue - ocean scenarios in depth.

Serious product homogenization is also a common problem in the industry. Most products only stay at the basic lawn - mowing function, and few people are deeply involved in solving in - depth user pain points such as lawn maintenance, grass recycling, and water - saving irrigation. More notably, the entry strategies of large companies are also relatively conservative - some companies have the industry habit of waiting for three clearly - positioned players to emerge in the market before following suit, and rarely take the initiative to conduct frontier exploration. Small start - up companies are also limited by funds and resources and are equally unable to support in - depth R & D. As a result, everyone is competing on the surface, and no one is digging for opportunities in the deep sea.

In terms of scenario exploration, there is currently no mature and implemented business model for commercial intelligent lawn mowing. Although some teams are trying, it is far from the large - scale stage. Moreover, the channels, R & D, and after - sales of commercial and household use follow two completely different logics and require separate teams to be established. Based on these judgments, we will not focus on the commercial direction for the time being.

Hard Kr: Your positioning is far more than just a lawn mowing robot company. What are Changyao's ideas for ecological layout?

Hu Yue: The underlying logic we think about has never been to create a bunch of isolated hardware products. What Changyao wants to build is a garden life form that can self - evolve and have full - domain perception.

Taking the lawn mowing robot as the entry point for perception and interaction, we continuously accumulate environmental data of the garden scenario, user behavior trajectories, and implicit models of plant growth, gradually forming a cognitive context with semantic understanding ability. But this is just the appearance. The real core will be carried by a terminal robot that completely subverts the current wheeled chassis movement mode - it will be the first truly implemented "embodied terminal" in the garden consumer - level scenario in the industry, a physical interface that connects the physical world and digital perception.

Changyao's evolution path is clear and far - reaching: in the short term, focus on the ultimate implementation of single - product hardware; in the long term, accelerate the weaving of an invisible network in the deep dimensions of the garden ecosystem and embodied intelligence. What we want is not a tool, but a high - barrier intelligent garden entrance - where the garden is no longer a workplace for machines, but a "second living room" where people, the environment, data, and entities coexist and interact.