The list of the robot companies with the most frenzied financing in the first half of the year has been released, and Unitree didn't even make it into the top three.
The robot financing this year has been extremely hot!
Since the Yushu robots' hip - swinging dance performance at the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Snake went viral, the entire market has been ignited, brimming with high - spirited sentiment, and the venture capital data fully confirms this.
According to IT Juzi data, there were 286 financing events in the primary market of the domestic robot field in the first half of the year, an increase of 166 compared with the same period last year, with a year - on - year growth rate of 138%. The data has more than doubled, showing a gratifying growth trend!
IT Juzi estimates that the total financing amount of robot startups in the first half of the year reached 27 billion yuan.
Among them, statistics show that more than 26 domestic robot startups received financing of hundreds of millions of yuan or more in the first half of the year, and these companies deserve attention. So, which company will top the list?
Robot companies that received hundreds of millions of yuan in financing in the first half of the year
Although Yushu Technology has gained great fame, it is not the robot company that received the most funds in the primary market in the first half of 2025.
According to IT Juzi statistics, the top - ranked company is Galaxy Universal Robot.
In June this year, Galaxy Universal announced a Series B financing of up to 1.1 billion yuan, led by CATL, with follow - on investments from Beijing Robot Industry Fund, GGV Capital, etc. It is the largest single - round financing in the field of embodied large - model robots this year.
It is reported that this fund will be used for the large - scale implementation of the embodied intelligent large model in the industrial field, deepening technical collaboration with CATL and exploring high - precision manufacturing scenarios with the Bosch joint - venture company.
As a new company established in 2023, the best endorsement for Galaxy Universal is its founder, Wang He. He was formerly an assistant professor and doctoral supervisor at the Peking University Institute for Frontier Computing Research, and the director of the Embodied Large Model Center at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence. He is a top scholar in the field of embodied intelligence.
Ranked second is Neolix. This company focuses on the R & D, manufacturing, and services of cargo - carrying unmanned vehicles. It is a vehicle - grade mobile service platform with both L4 - level autonomous driving and service robot AI capabilities.
The company's founder and CEO, Yu Enyuan, graduated from the Automation major of Chongqing University and once worked in the Intelligent Vehicle Division (L3) of Baidu.
In February this year, Neolix announced the completion of a 1 - billion - yuan Series C+ financing, supported by multiple logistics giants and financial investors such as CICC Capital.
The third - ranked company is Yuanding Intelligent, a wireless pool robot company. In April, it announced the completion of a new round of strategic financing of nearly 1 billion yuan. The strategic investment was made by Fluidra, a global pool industry giant, with Yunqi Capital as a new investor, and old shareholders such as XVC, Fosun RZ Capital, and Fengqiao Capital increasing their holdings.
According to media reports, Yuanding Intelligent's products are mainly exported to Europe and the United States, and it has achieved the first market share in the sales of pool robots on Amazon in the US, European, and Australian markets.
The fourth - ranked X Square Robot announced three rounds of financing of hundreds of millions of yuan in the first half of this year. The most recent Series A financing was led by Meituan's strategic investment arm, with follow - on investment from Meituan Longzhu.
Source of historical financing information of X Square Robot: IT Juzi
It is reported that this round of financing will be used to continuously accelerate the synchronous iteration of the fully self - developed end - to - end general embodied intelligent large model and the robot body, as well as the cooperation and implementation of intelligent solutions for multiple future application scenarios.
The fifth - ranked company is Yushu Technology, which is currently in the limelight.
In June 2025, Yushu Technology completed a Series C+ financing of about 700 million yuan, participated by giants such as Tencent and Alibaba. This round of financing is regarded as the last round before Yushu's listing, and the funds will be used to accelerate the listing process and technological R & D.
We found that most of the other robot companies that received hundreds of millions of yuan in financing have concepts of "embodied intelligence" and "AI brain", and several others focus on robots for specific scenarios.
For example, Cornerstone Robotics focuses on the R & D of innovative surgical robots and has completed the development of a multi - port laparoscopic surgical robot product and quickly entered the clinical trial stage; Shandong Future Robot focuses on the R & D of underwater robots and fire - fighting robots and completed a Series A financing of hundreds of millions of yuan invested by PetroChina Kunlun Capital in 2025.
Two factions of robot entrepreneurs/CEOs
Judging from the resumes of the founders, the founders of the above - mentioned high - financing robot companies can be divided into two factions:
One faction is top scholars, excelling in research.
They have emerged in the robot field with their profound academic research foundation and excellent scientific research ability, using their in - depth research in the professional field as a competitive advantage.
For example, Wang He, the founder of Galaxy Universal Robot, graduated from Stanford University. His research interests include embodied intelligence, 3D visual perception, and physical interaction. He was once an assistant professor at Peking University.
Wang Shiquan, the CEO of FeiXi Technology, also graduated from Stanford University (Ph.D.).
Tsinghua University is a particularly powerful force among robot entrepreneurs. For example, Wang Qian, the founder of X Square Robot, is a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University, and Jiang Zheyuan, the founder of Noetix, is a Ph.D. from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences of Tsinghua University.
It is worth mentioning an entrepreneur who is a "post - 2000 Ph.D. (how incredible it is to combine these two words)".
According to public reports, Yang Fengyu was born in 2000. He studied computer science at the University of Michigan for his undergraduate degree and then entered Yale University for a Ph.D. in computer science with a full scholarship. He has made remarkable achievements in the research of artificial intelligence and robots, publishing 15 related papers.
In 2024, Yang Fengyu returned to China after graduation and founded UniX AI, an embodied intelligent robot company based on the Unitouch visual - tactile large model. In just one year, the company has released two generations of robots: the wheeled robot Wanda and the bipedal robot Martian. The second - generation Wanda robot has been mass - produced and delivered in multiple general commercial service and consumer markets, with a base - version price of 88,000 yuan.
In May this year, it was reported that UniX AI completed hundreds of millions of yuan in Angel and Angel+ rounds of financing, participated by Zhongguancun Frontier Fund, Saina Capital, and Chang'an Private Capital.
The other faction is business practitioners, excelling in commercialization.
They either have accumulated rich connections and practical experience in entrepreneurship and are well - versed in the commercialization of robots; or they have gained experience in large companies, have an understanding of corporate operations, and are good at resource scheduling and management. The backgrounds of such entrepreneurs are usually remarkable and their qualifications are impressive.
According to IT Juzi statistics, there are several serial entrepreneurs in the robot field, including Zhang Di, the founder of Bennu Robotics, Gu Jie, the founder of Fourier Intelligence (who founded Jinghe Technology, a rehabilitation robot company, in 2012, and the company was later acquired), and Han Fengtao, the founder of Qianxun Intelligence (former co - founder and CPO of Luoshi Technology), all of whom have had several entrepreneurial experiences.
The representative figure of the large - company faction is Yu Yinan, the founder and CEO of VITA Power, who was once the vice - president and the president of the Software Platform Product Line of Horizon Robotics.
Yu Yinan graduated from the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with a Ph.D. in 2012. He joined the Multimedia Department of Baidu in August 2012 and then the Baidu Institute of Deep Learning in March 2013. He joined Horizon Robotics in 2015 and was the 5th employee. During his nearly 10 - year tenure at Horizon Robotics, he served as the person - in - charge of autonomous driving, the R & D director of intelligent driving, the general manager of intelligent driving products, and the vice - president and president of the Software Platform Product Line.
However, some companies form a "combination" in a complementary way. If the founder is more academically - inclined, a co - founder with rich business experience will be paired; if the founder excels in practice, a Ph.D. professor who understands robot research will be arranged as the CTO.
We found that Deng Taihua, the former vice - president and the former president of the Computing Product Line of Huawei, joined ZHIYUAN ROBOT as the chairman in March 2025, complementing Peng Zhihui, who has a research background.
This article is from the WeChat official account "IT Juzi" (ID: itjuzi521), author: Wu Meimei, published by 36Kr with authorization.