ZHIYUAN Founder Deng Taihua's Rare Public Appearance: Sharp Response to Doubts on Financing, Listing, and Scenario Implementation

This is the first time Deng Taihua, the founder of Zhiyuan, has made a public appearance at the meeting. His aim is to unite partners and channel providers to strive towards the goal of "shipping 10,000 units" in 2026.

Text by | Wang Fangyu

Edited by | Su Jianxun

On August 21, the first partners' conference of ZHIYUAN ROBOTICS was held in Shanghai. Deng Taihua, the founder, chairman and CEO of ZHIYUAN, who rarely appears in public, attended the conference and made an appearance with other senior executives.

Upon entering the venue, ZHIYUAN's Expedition A2 robot greeted the participants like an ambassador, waving to them. The quadruped robot dog D1 shuttled around the venue, performing tasks such as greeting guests and patrolling. The exhibition area on the third floor displayed the seven current implementation scenarios of ZHIYUAN's robots, including exhibition hall reception and material box transportation. Hundreds of robots were on display for the participants to experience.

The conference has become a "showcase" for ZHIYUAN's product and technological strength, aiming to demonstrate its capabilities to partners.

△Image source: Authorized by the enterprise

According to "Intelligent Emergence", nearly 2,000 partners signed up for this partners' conference. However, due to venue limitations, only a few hundred partners and shareholders were invited to attend.

Facing the partners and shareholders, Deng Taihua had a "closed - door conversation". He delivered a 29 - minute closed - door speech, reporting ZHIYUAN's all - round layout in terms of products, technology, business, ecosystem, and capital.

The speeches of ZHIYUAN's senior executives inside and outside the conference also fully revealed what ZHIYUAN has done and what it plans to do, directly or indirectly responding to the outside world's doubts about this star company in the field of embodied intelligence.

Priority on shipment volume target: 10,000 units to be shipped in 2026

Deng Taihua pointed out in his speech that the embodied intelligence industry has a head - gathering effect, and companies with large shipment volumes are at the forefront. Therefore, ZHIYUAN takes shipment volume as the main guiding direction, while also considering the quality of shipments (i.e., the number of breakthroughs among large - B customers).

He estimated that ZHIYUAN will ship thousands of robots this year and tens of thousands next year. He hopes to reach an annual production scale of hundreds of thousands of units in the next few years.

To achieve large - scale shipments, the power of distributors is indispensable. In his speech, Deng Taihua also revealed a major change in ZHIYUAN's distribution system.

"Currently, ZHIYUAN's distribution system mainly focuses on direct sales to large customers, with the proportion of channel sales almost zero. But starting from today's partners' conference, our strategy will shift to giving priority to partners. The goal for next year is that 70% of sales will be through partners, and the rest will come from online e - commerce."

Plan cash flow with "bottom - line thinking"

Regarding financing, Deng Taihua said that ZHIYUAN is currently in a state where "it can raise funds whenever it wants". The company will reserve cash flow based on the bottom - line thinking of "being able to maintain normal business operations for three years without any revenue".

At the beginning of August, ZHIYUAN ROBOTICS announced that it had received strategic investment from an international group, jointly led by LG Electronics and Korea Investment Group. Deng Taihua revealed that ZHIYUAN will soon launch a new round of financing and is expected to complete the next round (i.e., Series C) of financing by the end of the year.

He said that ZHIYUAN hopes to introduce more international industrial partners who can provide resource support for its internationalization. Starting from the fourth quarter, ZHIYUAN will organize similar partners' conferences overseas to accelerate its overseas expansion.

While raising funds, ZHIYUAN also makes investments. Deng Taihua revealed that ZHIYUAN and Hillhouse have jointly established an embodied intelligence industry fund with a scale of hundreds of millions of yuan. A larger - scale CVC will also be established this year, and the preparation process is currently underway.

Why establish joint - ventures with more than a dozen listed companies?

In the past year or so, ZHIYUAN has reached significant cooperation agreements with more than a dozen listed companies such as Bosung Precision, Dafeng Industry, and Wolong Electric Drive, and established joint - ventures. This approach is quite unique in the embodied intelligence industry.

In response to this, Wang Chuang, the president of ZHIYUAN's general business department, said that the ultimate goal of cooperating with listed companies is to jointly explore the application scenarios of embodied intelligence. Currently, ZHIYUAN has selected several types of partners for cooperation, and the cooperation logics vary:

Firstly, leading enterprises with application scenarios, represented by Fuling Precision and Dafeng Industry. The two parties will cooperate to polish products in real - world environments and make the scenarios work.

Secondly, technology service enterprises, represented by iSoftStone. Their technology service capabilities and customer networks can be used to jointly serve customers and expand sales.

Thirdly, technology - expert - type enterprises, represented by Lingxi Technology. Cooperation with them can strengthen ZHIYUAN's capabilities in core areas such as industrial vision and improve products.

Seven types of embodied scenarios can be implemented this year

Regarding application scenarios, Wang Chuang said that in the past year or so, ZHIYUAN has explored many scenarios. Some scenarios seemed easy at first but turned out to be very difficult to implement with the existing technology.

After extensive exploration, ZHIYUAN has identified seven scenarios where embodied intelligence can be implemented this year - Scenario 1: Exhibition hall explanation and reception; Scenario 2: Cultural and entertainment performances; Scenario 3: Material box transportation; Scenario 4: Scientific research and education; Scenario 5: Logistics sorting; Scenario 6: Data collection and training; Scenario 7: Mature products such as robot dogs and commercial cleaning robots.

"We are currently confident that we can implement and do well in these seven scenarios with this year's technology. Everyone agrees to focus on promoting these scenarios this year." Wang Chuang said.

Indirectly respond to the "back - door listing" controversy

The news that ZHIYUAN acquired Shanghai Weixing New Materials, a listed company on the A - share market, in July this year was a bombshell for the embodied intelligence industry and the capital market. Some media and peers implied that its listing path was taking a "shortcut".

In response, Yao Maoqing, a partner of ZHIYUAN and the president of the embodied business department, said:

"Embodied intelligence is a new track, and new things need innovation in all aspects, including technological innovation, application innovation, innovation in cooperation models and ecosystems, and innovation at the capital level. Moreover, this is a direction supported by the state. Many A - share listed companies have old or backward production capacities that need to be replaced by better targets, which is also the direction supported by the new six - point policy."

"We are also following the national guidance to make better use of funds and market support, so as to accelerate our product development and R & D."

Why did it miss the robot sports games?

ZHIYUAN also responded to the question of why it missed the recently concluded "2025 World Humanoid Robot Games".

Yao Maoqing said that on the one hand, ZHIYUAN was preparing for its first partners' conference. On the other hand, "We believe that we should showcase more of the actual working conditions that may be used in customer scenarios, such as continuous walking. In fact, the real - world usage scenarios of humanoid robots do not require them to do aerobics or sprint, which is also unsafe."

He added that in fact, all kinds of sports games and exhibitions, whether for ZHIYUAN or other competitors, consume a huge amount of resources and disrupt the normal R & D process. Companies may have to come up with a temporary plan for the exhibition, which may not be their long - term plan.