More than 10 billion yuan was raised in half a year, and capital is scrambling for humanoid robots.

From the song "Rice Seedling BOT" at the Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Snake to the successive robot marathons and robot fighting competitions, and then to the simultaneous appearance of more than 80 humanoid robot enterprises at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, 2025 is undoubtedly the year when humanoid robots broke into the mainstream.

While gaining popularity, capital has also been extending olive branches. The star enterprise Unitree Technology has started the listing guidance process, with a valuation exceeding 12 billion yuan, and is expected to become the new market - value leader on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. "The first humanoid robot stock", Ubtech Robotics, has launched its fifth refinancing plan.

Since July, there has been an investment event in the entire humanoid robot track on average every 1.5 to 2 days, and financing scales in the "hundred - million - yuan level" have become the norm.

Capital is betting on the future of humanoid robots, but the current situation of humanoid robots is the dilemma in mass production and commercialization. The hotter the capital market gets, the more the self - financing ability of enterprises and the complete business logic need to withstand the test.

15.3 billion yuan in hot money floods in, one financing event every two days

At the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, one historical moment after another is being created.

Compared with 18 enterprises last year, the number of participating enterprises in the humanoid robot field has increased several times this year, with more than 80 enterprises showing off their skills on the same stage.

Playing boxing, curling, grabbing tofu, writing calligraphy... Humanoid robots have achieved an innovative breakthrough from "moving" to "being useful", and their application scenarios are constantly expanding.

For example, the bipedal humanoid embodied service robot XMAN - F1 of Qinglang Intelligence demonstrated its skill of making popcorn smoothly during the exhibition, and it can also prepare various beverages according to customers' needs, offering multiple options such as "with ice or not".

Although the Lingxi X2, known as the "social maverick", has a small body, it can master high - difficulty movement skills such as walking, running, jumping, riding a bicycle, and weighted squats. It is also equipped with a multi - modal interaction large model and can display anthropomorphic behaviors such as "peeping" and "scratching".

Shanghai Electric brought a humanoid robot developed with the concept of "industrial genes, scenario customization". It is 167 cm tall, weighs 50 kg, and has 38 degrees of freedom throughout its body. It can move flexibly in various industrial environments, autonomously identify, locate, and transport boxes of different specifications, greatly improving the efficiency of warehousing operations.

As can be seen from the booming achievements, humanoid robots are evolving from "ornaments" to "helpers", and the industry has reached a moment of qualitative change.

Image source: Official of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference

Meanwhile, driven by both technology and capital, the humanoid robot industry is experiencing an unprecedented financing boom. In 2025, the popularity of this field has soared sharply, becoming the focus of global investors.

In terms of the number of financing events, there has been an explosive growth. Data shows that as of now in 2025, there have been 108 investment and financing events in the humanoid robot field, with a total amount of 15.35 billion yuan.

Since July, the financing rhythm of the entire track has further accelerated, with an investment event related to humanoid robots occurring on average every 1.5 to 2 days.

All these data intuitively reflect that more and more capital is flowing into the humanoid robot track, and the attractiveness of the industry is increasing day by day.

In terms of financing amount, new records are constantly being set.

Financing in the hundred - million - yuan level has become the norm, and large - scale financing events occur frequently, with top - tier global investment institutions such as Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital among them. Shenzhen Yuejiang Technology Co., Ltd. announced the successful completion of a private placement, raising a total of HK$1.037 billion. Shenzhen Zhongqing Robot Technology Co., Ltd. completed successive Pre - A++ and A1 rounds of financing, with a total amount of nearly 1 billion yuan. Enterprises such as Zhiyuan Innovation (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Zhujidongli Technology Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Yunshenchu Technology Co., Ltd. also announced relevant financing progress in July, with the single - transaction amount exceeding 100 million yuan each.

Star enterprises are of course among them. After the song "Rice Seedling BOT" at this year's Spring Festival Gala became a hit, Unitree Technology has become the "rising star" in the humanoid robot industry. It has not only attracted wide attention in the consumer market, triggering a boom in robot leasing, but also been sought after in the capital market.

The latest financing progress of Unitree Technology

Industry giants such as China Mobile, Lei Jun (Shunwei Capital), Tencent, Alibaba, and Ant Group have rushed to enter the market, causing Unitree Technology's valuation to rise to 12 billion yuan after the C - round. Recently, the China Securities Regulatory Commission officially announced that Unitree Technology has started the listing guidance process. Some media predict that Unitree Technology is likely to be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Based on its current valuation, Unitree Technology is expected to become the new market - value leader on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

The listed "first humanoid robot stock" on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Ubtech Robotics, is also "riding on the wave" to strengthen its strength. On July 22, after 19 months of listing, Ubtech Robotics issued an announcement stating that it would launch its fifth refinancing plan, planning to place approximately 30.15545 million new H - shares at a price of HK$82 per share, raising approximately HK$2.473 billion. After deducting relevant fees and expenses, the net financing amount is approximately HK$2.41 billion.

Leading enterprises, with their leading technology, strong teams, and good market prospects, have become the targets of capital chasing, further promoting the increase of industry valuation.

Conquer the trillion - level market, solve mass production first

Since the beginning of this year, whether from the perspective of capital enthusiasm or market orders, the humanoid robot industry has reached a booming moment. On July 11, China Mobile plans to spend 46.05 million yuan to purchase small - sized humanoid bipedal robots, computing power backpacks, and five - finger dexterous hands from Unitree Technology. This is the largest single public order in the domestic humanoid robot field, which also means that the "national team" has added another boost to the large - scale commercial use of humanoid robots.

Looking to the future, EVTank predicts that the global demand for humanoid robots will reach 18 million units in 2035, and the market size will climb to 1.5 trillion yuan. Morgan Stanley also predicts that humanoid robots will be "widely adopted" in China in the second half of 2025.

Image source: New Strategy

With the support of policies and prospects, there are increasing calls for this year to be the "year of mass production" for the humanoid robot industry. However, the reality is that although the humanoid robot industry has made significant progress in technology R & D and capital injection, it still faces many challenges in mass production and commercialization.

In terms of production technology, the manufacturing of humanoid robots involves complex technologies in multiple fields such as machinery, electronics, and software, and requires extremely high - level production processes.

"Currently, the production of most humanoid robot enterprises still relies on manual labor. Although there won't be many problems in small - scale production, once it comes to large - scale production, problems such as low production efficiency and unstable product quality will emerge," revealed an employee of a humanoid robot enterprise.

The production capacity bottleneck of key components also restricts the mass - production process of humanoid robots. Take the planetary roller screw, one of the key components of humanoid robots, for example. Its production process is complex, the technical threshold is high, and the number of suppliers with large - scale production capabilities is limited.

Currently, the production of planetary roller screws still relies on manual operation, resulting in a serious shortage of production capacity and difficulty in meeting market demand. In addition, other key components such as servo motors, reducers, and sensors also have similar production - capacity problems. Therefore, the overall manufacturing cost remains high, and the market is dominated by a few enterprises, leaving little room for price negotiation.

For humanoid robot enterprises, to achieve the leap from producing hundreds to thousands or even tens of thousands of units, they need not only to make significant innovations and improvements in production technology to improve production automation levels but also to increase support for key component suppliers and cultivate more suppliers with large - scale production capabilities to ensure the stable supply of components.

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Speaking of the issue of commercialization, the mature application scenarios of humanoid robots are relatively limited, and most of them are still in the demonstration and pilot stages.

For example, the "Rice Seedling BOT" program at the Spring Festival Gala gave Unitree Technology's humanoid robots extremely high brand recognition overnight, triggering a boom in the consumer market and the leasing market. However, as the popularity declined, the price of its products in the second - hand market also began to drop significantly. This may indicate to some extent that performance and ornamental scenarios are not enough to open up a broader consumer market.

In other application scenarios, the functions that humanoid robots can provide are also very limited. For example, Fourier Intelligence entered the medical rehabilitation robot market in 2017. In the elderly care and nursing scenario, although humanoid robots can provide companionship and health monitoring services for the elderly to a certain extent, due to the complex and diverse physical conditions and needs of the elderly, robots still have obvious deficiencies in dealing with emergencies and providing personalized nursing services.

In the education scenario, Ubtech Robotics' humanoid robots have entered schools for pilot teaching. As teaching aids, although they can bring a novel learning experience to students, their teaching content and methods are not rich and flexible enough to fully meet teaching needs at present.

In addition, the "hardware - software integration" delivery ability remains a pain point in the industry. Humanoid robots not only need advanced hardware equipment but also a powerful software system to achieve their intelligent functions. However, currently, many enterprises have deficiencies in the coordinated development of hardware and software, resulting in problems such as software - hardware incompatibility and poor system stability in the actual application of robots, which affect user experience and product promotion.

Currently, the humanoid robot industry is at a critical stage full of opportunities and challenges. The recent financing boom shows that capital highly recognizes the future development potential of this field, but the difficulties in mass production and commercialization also objectively exist. For the humanoid robot industry to achieve the leap from concept to reality and from the laboratory to the market, patience is needed.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zinc Scale" (ID: znkedu), written by Li Jinlin, and published by 36Kr with authorization.