A post-90s entrepreneur in Weifang, Shandong, is making humanoid robots: raising 1.5 billion yuan in a single round of financing and aiming for an IPO, with Tencent placing a bet.

Recently, another humanoid robot company has completed a large - scale financing round.

Shenzhen Leju Robot has just completed nearly 1.5 billion yuan in Pre - IPO financing, jointly participated in by 15 institutions such as Shenzhen Investment Holdings Capital, Shenzhen Longhua Capital, and Qianhai Basic Investment. According to data from ChinaVenture, this financing is one of the largest single - round financings in the humanoid robot field this year.

Leju Robot's products are divided into two categories: small bipedal robots measuring 30 - 70 cm, targeting the education market and serving nearly 5,000 primary and secondary schools and vocational colleges across the country; full - sized humanoid robots for industrial and scientific research scenarios, which have been applied in industrial settings such as BAIC Off - Road Vehicles.

Leju Robot's sprint towards an IPO has drawn the industry's attention to two emerging opportunities in the humanoid robot field:

1. Collaborative innovation in the industrial chain and related new technology research. For example, 5G - A remote control technology and solid - state battery technology suitable for robots can improve the robot's environmental adaptability and endurance.

2. Emerging markets, such as Southeast Asia and Europe. The average annual increase in labor costs in Southeast Asian manufacturing is 8%, and the aging rate in Europe exceeds 20%. There is an urgent demand for humanoid robots in both regions. Leju has initiated research in Southeast Asia and plans to launch simplified industrial robots suitable for the local environment in 2026.

- 01 -

Like Wang Xingxing, the founder of Unitree Robotics, Leng Xiaokun, the founder of Leju Robot, is also a member of the post - 90s generation, born in Weifang, Shandong in 1992.

As early as in middle school, he won awards in the National Youth Robot Competition. Later, he was recommended to the School of Computer Science at Harbin Institute of Technology, where he won the first prize in the National Robot Championship multiple times during his studies.

In 2016, he led nine classmates from Harbin Institute of Technology to start a business in Shenzhen. At that time, the core pain point in the humanoid robot industry was the "disconnect between technology and industrialization" - the cost of laboratory prototype machines exceeded one million yuan, making mass production difficult. Toy - grade products had single functions and lacked practical value, and core components relied on imports.

Leng Xiaokun proposed the strategy of "starting with small - sized robots and then moving on to full - sized ones". First, achieve industrialization with small - sized robots to recoup funds, and then tackle the core technologies of full - sized robots. This became the key to breaking through the industry's dilemma.

In July of the same year, it received 10 million yuan in angel investment from Songhe Capital and completed the finalization and mass production of the first - generation small bipedal robot "Aelos" within one month.

In 2017, Tencent injected 50 million yuan in strategic investment to help upgrade the educational version of the robot, and the products quickly entered thousands of schools.

In 2018, when starting the research and development of the full - sized humanoid robot "Kuafu", the company encountered the problem of an immature global industrial chain. Core components had to be purchased across regions. Even after investing more than 3 million yuan in the first prototype, mass production was still difficult. So the team decided to achieve autonomy in core components.

In 2023, the "Kuafu" robot equipped with the open - source Hongmeng system was released, with the ability to jump and walk on various terrains.

In January 2025, the 100th full - sized humanoid robot was delivered to BAIC Off - Road Vehicles, making Leju one of the leading humanoid robot companies in terms of delivery volume in China. In March, it jointly launched a 5G - A humanoid robot with China Mobile and Huawei, achieving a leap from technology to commercialization.

- 02 -

The humanoid robot market is on the verge of an explosion. According to data from GGII, the sales volume of humanoid robots in China exceeded 4,000 units in the first half of 2025, and it is expected to reach 7,300 units for the whole year.

However, the industry still has three major pain points: high cost of core components, insufficient scene adaptability, and lack of mass - production capabilities. The mainstream solutions are divided into "small educational robots" and "full - sized industrial robots". Leju is one of the few companies that have achieved large - scale implementation of both types of products.

In terms of the competitive landscape, in the first half of 2025, the CR3 reached 79.63% (statistics from GGII). The leading companies are Unitree Technology with a market share of 51.72% (focusing on quadruped robots and extending to the humanoid field), Ubtech with 16.86% (deeply involved in service - scenario humanoid robots), and Zhiyuan Innovation with 11.06% (focusing on high - end full - sized robots for scientific research). Currently, the market is clearly in short supply. The global expected sales volume in 2025 is only 12,400 units (predicted by Frost & Sullivan), far from meeting the industrial and educational needs.

Compared with its competitors, Leju's core differentiation lies in "full - industrial - chain layout + parallel development in two scenarios". According to the company's 2025 supply chain report, it controls core components by investing in Quanzhibo (joint components) and Liju Power (motors) and jointly builds a mass - production line with Dongfang Seiko to solve the industry's pain point of "difficult mass production". At the same time, it adheres to parallel development in the education and industrial scenarios, using educational robots to achieve stable cash flow and full - sized products to seize the future market.

From the perspective of industry technology evolution, humanoid robots are entering a period of multi - technology integration and breakthrough. At the core motion control level, the integration of Model - Based and RL algorithms has become the mainstream. Traditional single algorithms either rely on preset models and have difficulty dealing with complex scenarios or have insufficient stability due to trial - and - error methods. The combined "cerebellum" system can enable robots to quickly adapt to unknown environments.

After applying this technology to Leju's "Kuafu" robot, the terrain adaptation error rate has dropped to 3.2%. The 5G - A technology has broken the operation boundaries. The 5G - A humanoid robot jointly developed by Leju has enabled remote engineers to control chassis welding in the BAIC factory.

In terms of energy supply, the mainstream lithium - ion batteries have a endurance of less than 4 hours. Solid - state battery and wireless charging technologies are solving this pain point. GGII predicts that by 2026, more than 30% of mid - to - high - end products will use solid - state batteries, with the endurance increased to 8 - 10 hours and the charging time reduced to within 1 hour. Leju has reached a cooperation agreement with CATL and plans to use it in the next - generation "Kuafu" robot.

- 03 -

Driven by new technologies, future opportunities in the humanoid robot industry are concentrated in three aspects:

First, vertical penetration into scenarios. According to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, there are more than 40 million disabled elderly people in China, and there is a shortage of 500,000 elderly care workers. The market size of elderly care companion robots is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan in 2028. In the field of smart logistics, JD.com and SF Express have piloted autonomous loading and unloading robots.

Second, global expansion. The average annual increase in labor costs in Southeast Asian manufacturing is 8%, and the aging rate in Europe exceeds 20%, which has spurred the demand for robots. Leju has initiated research in Southeast Asia and plans to launch simplified industrial robots suitable for high - temperature and high - humidity environments in 2026.

Third, collaborative innovation in the industrial chain. The localization of core components is accelerating. GGII expects that the cost of domestic high - precision joints will decrease by 40% in 2027, reducing the cost of the whole machine and attracting small and medium - sized enterprises to enter, forming a cycle of "technological breakthrough - cost reduction - demand explosion".

This article does not constitute any investment advice.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Pencil News" (ID: pencilnews), author: Truth - teller. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.