Jensen Huang invested in an alumnus of Zhejiang University.
Not long ago, the robotics startup Dyna Robotics announced the completion of a $120 million (approximately 850 million RMB) Series A financing round. After this round of financing, the company's valuation exceeded $600 million (approximately 4.27 billion RMB).
Notably, industry giants such as NVIDIA, Amazon, Samsung, and LG participated in this financing round. The specific investors include Robostrategy, an investment fund focusing on the robotics field, CRV, and First Round Capital leading the investment, with Salesforce Venture, NVIDIA, Amazon, Samsung, and LG Technology Ventures participating.
Dyna Robotics was founded in September 2024 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas, USA, with a hardware R & D center in Shanghai. In March this year, the company completed a seed - round financing of over $20 million, led by CRV and First Round Capital, with ZhenFund participating. At that time, the company's valuation was approximately $100 million.
This means that in just one year since its establishment, the company's valuation is expected to soar five - fold.
01 A Chinese - founded Team
Dyna Robotics was founded in September 2024 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas, USA, while also having a hardware R & D center in Shanghai, China. The company was co - founded by three co - founders: Lindon Gao, York Yang (Shiyuan Yang), and Jason Ma. The background combination of these three founders is perfect, integrating entrepreneurial experience, technical expertise, and academic strength.
Lindon Gao and York Yang are long - term business partners. They once founded and successfully sold the smart shopping cart company Caper AI for a transaction amount of $350 million. Lindon Gao immigrated to the United States with his parents from China when he was young and has rich business vision and cross - cultural management experience. York Yang was born in Hangzhou, China. He graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Zhejiang University in 2010 and then went to the United States for further studies, obtaining a master's degree in computer science from UCLA.
The third co - founder, Jason Ma, is an academic authority in the field of robotics. He graduated with a doctorate from the GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked at NVIDIA AI, Meta AI, and Google DeepMind successively. He focuses on building robot foundation models and leads the development of multiple breakthrough algorithms. The other core members of the team all come from famous universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley, as well as leading technology companies such as Google, NVIDIA, Aurora, and Cruise, forming a top - notch team that understands both research and engineering.
In the company's development process, Dyna Robotics has shown amazing growth speed. In March 2025, the company just completed a seed - round financing of over $20 million, led by CRV and First Round Capital, with ZhenFund participating. At that time, the company's valuation was approximately $100 million. Just half a year later, the company's valuation has soared to $600 million, attracting the attention of more strategic investors.
In terms of technical strength, Dyna Robotics currently has about 30 employees and is focusing on developing AI models to help robots learn and improve their abilities in real - world scenarios. At the end of April this year, the company officially launched its first all - weather, efficient, and stable autonomous dexterous manipulation model, DYNA - 1 (Dynamism v1). This is the world's first dexterous manipulation foundation model that can be applied in commercial scenarios, performing excellently in terms of quality, speed, and stability.
The company's robot concept is highly consistent with the "Physical AI" concept proposed by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. CEO Lindon Gao said that Dyna will not write task instructions for robots but let them learn gradually through data input from the environment. By integrating robots into the real world, Dyna's models can become faster and more intelligent. "Our ultimate goal is to unlock Physical AGI."
However, different from some humanoid robot companies, Dyna Robotics does not focus on humanoid products at the hardware end. Currently, the company's fixed robotic arms have been applied in multiple industries, including folding napkins in restaurants, organizing towels in fitness centers, and handling clothes in laundromats. These seemingly simple tasks actually require a high degree of precision and adaptability and are an important step for robots to operate in the real world. Lindon Gao said that in the long run, Dyna will explore robots "closer to the human form," but at present, it focuses more on solving specific problems in real - world business scenarios.
The successful financing of Dyna Robotics also reflects the popularity of the entire robotics industry. According to PitchBook data, the robotics industry has attracted $12.1 billion in investment in the first half of this year. In the market's view, the robotics industry is in the early stage of trend investment. The initial order volume is not a key signal. The core lies in whether it can solve the two core problems of humanoid robots: high hardware cost, complex and undefined structure; and lack of intelligence in the "brain."
Regarding the use of this round of financing, the company plans to further optimize its AI models and deploy more robots. With the injection of funds, Dyna Robotics is expanding its world - class research and engineering team, accelerating the development of the next - generation foundation models, and committed to delivering high - performance general robots in commercial environments.
From the banks of the Fuchun River to the top of Silicon Valley, the Chinese - founded team of Dyna Robotics is writing a new chapter in the cutting - edge field of embodied intelligence with their unique technological concepts and business philosophy.
Their story is not only about technological and business success but also about the integration of Eastern and Western wisdom and the exploration of how to make robots truly valuable in the real world. With the support of giants such as NVIDIA, this startup is becoming an important builder of the bridge between robotics research and wide - scale application.
02 Jensen Huang, Making Frequent Investments
Speaking of which, Jensen Huang has been quite active in investment in recent years. In 2024 alone, NVIDIA made approximately 45 investments, and its investment portfolio already includes about 40 unicorn or near - unicorn companies.
Jensen Huang's investment logic is clear and firm. He doesn't simply chase trends but focuses on companies that can strengthen NVIDIA's ecosystem, prove the value of its technology platform, and extend AI capabilities from the digital world to the physical world. His heavy investment in the fields of embodied intelligence and robotics, especially several key investments recently, deeply reflects this strategic intention.
NVIDIA's investment in the emerging robotics company Dyna Robotics is a typical example of its layout in embodied intelligence.
This company co - founded by Zhejiang University alumni has seen its valuation soar 5 to 6 times in just half a year. In the latest financing round, it received $120 million, and its valuation exceeded $600 million. The core attraction of Dyna Robotics lies in its research and development of the world's first commercially viable dexterous manipulation foundation model, DYNA - 1 (Dynamism v1). This model enables robots to smoothly complete multiple complex end - to - end tasks, such as two - robotic - arm collaborative item organization, towel arrangement, and sandwich assembly, and can quickly respond to human voice commands.
Its uniqueness lies in not relying on traditional coding instructions but allowing robots to learn gradually through environmental data input, which is highly consistent with Jensen Huang's advocated "Physical AI" concept. NVIDIA values Dyna Robotics' potential to combine AI models with physical - world operation capabilities and quickly deploy in multiple scenarios such as catering, fitness, and laundry, which helps NVIDIA's hardware and simulation platforms occupy a core position in the robot industrialization process.
In addition to direct investment, NVIDIA is also widely deploying in the embodied intelligence track by building an ecosystem.
Like he bet on OpenAI back then, Jensen Huang is spreading his bets on multiple future embodied intelligence giants in the Chinese market. At the 2025 World Robot Conference, NVIDIA appeared with many Chinese robotics ecosystem partners, including Unitree Technology, representing the hardware body, and Galaxy Universal Robotics, representing the software "brain."
Unitree Technology deployed NVIDIA's full - stack robot technology on its new humanoid robot R1 and used NVIDIA's Isaac Sim platform to train the robot's movements. Its robots have been applied in scenarios such as evening parties and commercial performances. Galaxy Universal has self - developed a humanoid robot, Galbot, with an embedded NVIDIA Thor chip. It can quickly slide to the shelf and autonomously complete loading and unloading actions in handling tasks and has signed contracts with over a hundred pharmacies in specific scenarios such as smart pharmacies and smart retail stores.
NVIDIA's robotics ecosystem is not a simple procurement relationship but an infrastructure with three interlocking rings of "computing power - simulation - data," weaving scattered hardware bodies, vertical scenarios, and algorithm teams into a network that can be quickly commercially applied. The purpose is to obtain rich scenarios and data through a wide range of partners to feed back and improve its technology platform.
Jensen Huang is also sparing no expense in investing in AI infrastructure. In the United States, NVIDIA announced a $5 billion investment in the troubled chip giant Intel.
Although this is not a direct investment in a startup, it deeply reflects Jensen Huang's determination to consolidate and expand the AI computing power foundation. By cooperating with Intel, NVIDIA aims to combine Intel's x86 CPU more closely with NVIDIA's AI - accelerated GPU to develop new chips for personal computers and data centers.
Jensen Huang pointed out that this cooperation reveals that "the era of accelerated computing and AI computing has arrived" and is expected to open up a new field with an annual market opportunity of approximately $25 billion to $50 billion for NVIDIA. This can not only help NVIDIA penetrate deeper into the PC market and move towards the "edge computing" field, diversify business risks, but also strategically counterbalance AMD, which has both CPU and GPU capabilities, ensuring NVIDIA's dominant position in the key underlying architecture of AI computing power.
Analyzing in depth the reasons for Jensen Huang's investment in the AI and embodied intelligence tracks, the primary reason is the strategic need to build and consolidate NVIDIA's ecosystem moat. Through investing in companies with high technological synergy with itself, NVIDIA ensures that its core technologies such as GPU, CUDA, Isaac Sim simulation platform, and the latest Thor chip can continuously receive feedback and drive from cutting - edge application scenarios.
Secondly, Jensen Huang has keenly observed that AI is moving from information processing to physical - world manipulation, which he calls tapping into the potential of the "trillion - dollar physical - world market." Investing in Dyna Robotics, Wayve, and Chinese robotics companies is to seize the entrance of Physical AI and lead the paradigm shift in the next computing era.
Jensen Huang's investment logic is essentially a strategic layout centered on the technological ecosystem, spanning the digital and physical worlds. He doesn't simply chase financial returns but deeply binds through capital those innovative forces that can verify his computing platform, expand his technological boundaries, and ultimately implant his chips and software into the future intelligent world.
From robotics startups in Silicon Valley to autonomous driving companies in the UK, and to the emphasis on the potential of embodied intelligence in China, Jensen Huang is using his unique investment philosophy to build an unshakable foundation for NVIDIA in the AI era and continuously promote the revolution of artificial intelligence from virtual code to physical reality.
03 Chinese Scientists Standing at the Center of Silicon Valley Technology
Speaking of which, the most eye - catching thing about this company is that its founding team is entirely composed of Chinese people.
In fact, since ChatGPT made a stunning debut at the end of 2022, the presence of Chinese people in the global artificial intelligence field has been increasing. Currently, there is a general consensus in the international scientific and technological community: Chinese research talents are becoming the key intellectual force supporting top - tier AI institutions in the United States.
On July 9, Elon Musk officially launched the fourth - generation product of xAI. However, the focus at the press conference was not him but two Chinese scientists, Yuhuai Wu and Jimmy Ba. After the event, a group photo of the xAI team went viral on social media - the proportion of Chinese members was close to 80%, which was particularly noticeable.
Specifically, among the 12 founding members of xAI, five are Chinese. In addition to the two mentioned above, they also include Yang Ge from the Harvard Department of Mathematics, Zihang Dai who graduated from the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University, and Guodong Zhang from Zhejiang University.
It's not only Musk who favors Chinese scientists. Another Silicon Valley giant, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is also actively recruiting Chinese technical talents.
He is launching the most intense talent war in Silicon Valley in the past decade, with Chinese engineers as the primary target.
Among them, the most eye - catching recruitment is the addition of Ruo - Ming Pang, the former head of Apple's foundation model team. According to Bloomberg, the total value of his contract to join Meta is as high as $200 million. Soon, his deputy, Tom Gunter, and several other core members also switched to Meta.
Among the 14 - person recruitment list publicly announced by Meta, eight are Chinese engineers, most of whom come from OpenAI and Google DeepMind.
The first batch confirmed to join includes Shengjia Zhao, an alumnus of Tsinghua University, Jiahui Yu from the Special Class for the Gifted Young at the University of Science and Technology of China, Shuchao Bi, a graduate of Zhejiang University, and Hongyu Ren from Peking University. These people are the key R & D forces supporting OpenAI's breakthroughs such as GPT - 4.1.
It's not just Meta. Technology giants such as Google and Microsoft have also joined the talent war and listed Chinese scientists as their core targets. For example, Google successfully recruited Kai - Ming He, a visual recognition expert who graduated from the Basic Science Class at Tsinghua University and has obtained a tenured position at MIT. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recruited two Chinese students and promoted one of them to vice - president and chief scientist.
It's particularly worth noting that while Chinese scientists continue to influence Silicon Valley, the artificial intelligence strength in China is also rapidly improving and even gradually surpassing and leading in some fields.
According to a report jointly launched by the Investment Promotion Office of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in China and Shenzhen Dongbi Data, among the world's top 100 AI scientists, 65 have Chinese backgrounds. Among them, 50 are currently working in Chinese institutions, and the other 15 are working in research centers in the United States.
Correspondingly, Chinese scholars have also established a leading position in the output of core AI achievements.
The "2025 AI Index Report" from Stanford University shows that from 2010 to 2023, the number of AI - related patents increased significantly from 3,833 to 122,511, with a 29.6% increase last year alone. As of 2023, China ranked first in the total number of AI patents, accounting for 69.7% of the globally authorized patents.
The reason why Chinese scientists can stand out in the AI era is largely due to the transformation of the large - model technology paradigm - this change highlights the comprehensive advantages of Chinese engineers in terms of efficiency, robustness, and innovation.
A Chinese engineer who has worked at both Meta and OpenAI shared: "They don't particularly favor Chinese people but recognize the fact that Chinese engineers are the best guarantee to achieve the triple goals of efficiency, stability, and innovation."
This article is from the WeChat official account "Rongzhong Finance" (ID: thecapital), author: Tao Wang, editor: Ren Wu, published by 36Kr with authorization.