Industrial capital is vying for embodied intelligence.
Hot money from industrial capital continues to flow into the embodied intelligence track.
Recently, Pacini, an enterprise focusing on embodied intelligence whole machines and sensors, completed a new round of Series A financing. It was strategically led by JD.com, with multiple institutions such as Puyao Xinyie, Hongzhao Fund, and Zhangke Yaokun following the investment. Gengxin Capital China served as the exclusive strategic financial advisor.
Pacini is the sixth embodied intelligence-related enterprise invested by JD.com in the past three months.
On the other hand, Meituan is also aggressively expanding its embodied intelligence territory. Recently, it led the investment in robot companies including Tashizhihang and Xinghaitu.
In addition to Internet platform enterprises, CATL, a power battery manufacturer, and Geely, a new-energy vehicle manufacturer, have also frequently appeared on the shareholder lists of embodied intelligence startups.
This investment boom is shifting from VC capital to industrial capital guided by "implementation and synergy capabilities."
Why are industrial players so obsessed with embodied intelligence?
JD.com and Meituan, the two major platform enterprises, are becoming the most active industrial investors in the embodied intelligence track.
JD.com's recent investments in embodied intelligence enterprises are not limited to Pacini. Public information shows that in the past two months, JD.com has actively participated in the investment of six enterprises, including Qianxun Intelligence, Zhujidongli, and Zhongqing Robot, covering multiple links from whole machines to key components.
Compiled from public information. Chart/Produced by a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily
Meituan started earlier and moved faster. From the beginning of 2024 to now, Meituan has made investments at an average pace of once every two months, continuously investing in eight robot projects. It has also invested in leading projects such as Unitree Robotics and Galaxy Universal. In terms of the layout of embodied intelligence, Meituan can be said to have bought "half of the industry."
Compiled from public information. Chart/Produced by a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily
In addition to Internet giants, industrial capital from the manufacturing industry is also deploying in embodied intelligence through equity investment and self-research, such as CATL, Geely, and Midea.
According to interviews conducted by reporters from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily with multiple industry insiders, the investments of industrial investors such as Internet giants and leading enterprises in the industrial chain in embodied intelligence enterprises are mostly for strategic synergy. The first large-scale implementation applications of embodied intelligence are most likely to appear in scenarios of "semi-structured, repetitive, and high-intensity labor," such as express logistics, intelligent delivery, and factory inspection. This also explains why platform enterprises such as Meituan and JD.com are so active.
During this year's World Artificial Intelligence Conference, when being interviewed by the media, He Xiaodong, the senior vice president of JD.com Group and the deputy dean of JD.com Group Exploration Research Institute, publicly shared JD.com's thoughts on embodied intelligence behind its intensive investments for the first time:
Firstly, it is a long-term strategic investment; secondly, embodied intelligence is part of the service ecosystem, and the JD.com ecosystem will benefit from the development of embodied intelligence; thirdly, JD.com has a broad view of embodied intelligence, not only focusing on "humanoid robots," but more on the broader concept of "brain + cerebellum + IO."
At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, multiple enterprises invested by JD.com participated in the exhibition collectively and even appeared at the same technology forum, jointly demonstrating their applicability in scenarios such as last-mile delivery, warehouse collaboration, and factory inspection. This "group-style" participation in the exhibition is essentially a form of in-ecosystem linkage.
Further analysis shows that under the dual pressures of deep aging and manufacturing industry upgrading, industrial capital seizes the opportunity through forward-looking layout of embodied intelligence and constructs a closed-loop ecosystem as early as possible. This investment enthusiasm is not only a pursuit of technology but also a strategic bet on the future.
The More Favored Industrial Capital
It is worth noting that although capital investment in the AI and robot fields has become active again since 2024, in the field of embodied intelligence, some startups do not give priority to VC institutions.
"Currently, leading robot startups prefer to introduce industrial investors or investors with large state-owned capital backgrounds during financing," Ji Wei, the founding managing partner of Huaying Capital, said in an interview not long ago. Huaying Capital has currently invested in multiple embodied intelligence enterprises, including Independent Variable Robotics, Magic Atom, Xingdong Jiyuan, and Yun Shen Chu Technology.
Ji Wei believes that there are three reasons behind this trend: Firstly, industrial capital can provide real scenarios to accelerate the implementation of orders; secondly, large state-owned capital can provide the enterprise with a capitalization path and resource synergy. "For financial investment institutions, it becomes more difficult to obtain shares as the company develops."
Projects incubated by industrial players also confirm this view. Li Fashe, the general manager of Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd., recently revealed in an interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that the company is promoting its Series A+ financing and also prefers to introduce capital parties with industrial resources.
The reason lies in that although there is no shortage of VC funds, compared with pure financial investment, embodied intelligence startups need orders, computing power, and cooperation channels in the upstream and downstream industrial chains more.
Behind the Investment Boom: Bubbles and Order Are Emerging
With the large-scale entry of capital, some voices have warned that there may be certain phenomena of "reinventing the wheel" and "blindly following the trend" in the embodied intelligence industry in the short term.
The CTO of a robot subsidiary of a listed company told a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily frankly that "there is a lot of repetition in products, especially in technology" among robot enterprises in the market at present, and some enterprises have not truly achieved differentiated design.
"At this time, it depends more on the vision of investors, whether to invest in the ecosystem or in demos," the person said.
"Entrepreneurs like to find large state-owned capital with government resources for the first-round investment and Internet giants for the second-round investment. VCs have instead become the 'buyers of last resort,'" an institutional investor who preferred to remain anonymous said. Driven by hot money, the valuations of some projects have been rising steadily, but the technological progress and order implementation have not advanced synchronously.
Overall, the embodied intelligence industry is going through a critical window period of transition from "technology verification" to "scenario implementation." Beneath the bubbles, a healthy industrial order is gradually taking shape. From industrial capital to whole-machine enterprises, more explicit requirements are being put forward for the scenario value creation ability and delivery ability.
During this year's World Artificial Intelligence Conference, through exchanges with multiple robot whole-machine enterprises at their exhibition booths, reporters from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily learned that major manufacturers are also focusing more on exploring suitable implementation scenarios and promoting mass production this year. Many enterprises are accelerating the construction of their production lines.
For example, Guo Yandong, the founder and CEO of Zhipingfang, told a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that the company has signed about 500 orders this year, and these orders will be delivered for "work" upon mass production. The company's first mass-production factory will also be completed in September, with a plan to achieve an annual delivery capacity of over 10,000 units by 2028.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily". Author: Zhang Yangyang. Republished by 36Kr with permission.