With the "explosion" of embodied intelligence, who will be the "king of investment" behind it?
In 2025, the embodied intelligence track witnessed an explosive growth in commercialization.
Humanoid robots are no longer just a figment of imagination in science - fiction movies. They are emerging from laboratories at an unprecedented pace and flooding into factories, warehouses, and various commercial scenarios. As multiple enterprises have successively secured orders worth hundreds of millions of yuan, a list of the "Club of Hundred - Million - Yuan Orders" composed of Ubtech, Zhipu Robotics, Galaxy Universal, Zhipingfang, Stardust Intelligence, Yuanli Unlimited, and Songyan Power has officially surfaced.
Embodied robots are widely regarded as the next - generation super terminals after mobile phones and cars. The capital forces that were among the first to lay out in this track are now beginning to reap tangible rewards.
Who will become the "King of Investment" in this terminal revolution? The answer is quietly emerging.
01 The Booming Industry: From Concept to Scenario
In 2025, the hottest sub - investment market in artificial intelligence is undoubtedly embodied intelligence.
It is predicted that by 2030, the global market size will exceed 230 billion yuan, with China accounting for over 40%, becoming the core engine of global industrial growth. By 2050, it is estimated that the global market size of humanoid robots will reach 7 trillion US dollars, and the global number of humanoid robots will reach 648 million.
The rapid expansion of the Chinese market size also confirms the industry's potential. The "2025 Research Report on Humanoid Robots and Embodied Intelligence Industry" predicts that in 2025, the market size of China's embodied intelligence will reach 5.295 billion yuan, accounting for about 27% of the global market; the market size of humanoid robots will reach 8.239 billion yuan, accounting for about 50% of the global market.
This is a vast "blue ocean" market, and capital has already started to make layouts.
In the first eight months of 2025, the financing amount in the primary market of China's robotics field reached 38.624 billion yuan, 1.8 times that of the whole year of 2024. Currently, the financing scale is still rising: in September 2025, nearly 30 financings were disclosed in the domestic embodied intelligence and robotics field in a single month, with a total amount approaching 4 billion yuan, and multiple financings worth over 1 billion yuan frequently occurred.
The frequent occurrence of financing events and the repeated breaking of records for single - financing amounts have once become evidence of the booming embodied intelligence.
In late June, Galaxy Universal, a domestic embodied intelligent robot enterprise, officially announced a financing of 1.1 billion yuan, with the cumulative financing amount reaching 2.4 billion yuan, breaking both the single - round financing record and the cumulative financing record in the industry.
On July 9, Xinghaitu, an embodied intelligent robot company, officially announced the successive completion of Series A4 and Series A5 strategic financings, with a total financing amount of over 100 million US dollars in the two rounds. Among them, the Series A4 financing was jointly led by Capital Today and Meituan Longzhu, and the Series A5 financing was jointly led by Meituan Longzhu and Meituan Strategic Investment.
Coincidentally, Yun Shen Chu Technology, one of the "Six Little Dragons in Hangzhou", also announced the completion of a new round of financing of nearly 500 million yuan, jointly led by Fortune Capital and Guoxin Fund, followed by institutions such as Beijing Robot Industry Development Investment Fund, Qianhai Mother Fund, CCTV Convergence Media Fund, Fuzhe Fund, Huaying Capital, and Wuzhongda Investment, and the old shareholders continued to support.
Another "Six Little Dragons in Hangzhou" enterprise, Unitree Technology, has also been constantly in the news for financing recently. In addition to the newly announced financing by Shoucheng Holdings, media reports also said that Unitree Technology has completed the Series C financing, with a scale of about 700 million yuan, and its post - financing valuation reached 12 billion yuan. Funds under China Mobile, Tencent, Jinqiu, Alibaba, Ant, and Geely Capital jointly led the investment, and most of the old shareholders participated in the follow - on investment.
Additionally, on July 7, Xingdong Jiyuan, an embodied intelligence enterprise, announced the completion of a nearly 500 - million - yuan Series A financing.
After completing a new round of Series A financing in September 2025, the valuation of Zhipingfang, a Shenzhen - based startup, exceeded 1 billion US dollars, officially entering the "unicorn" camp. It is worth mentioning that this company, founded in April 2023, has completed seven rounds of financings worth hundreds of millions of yuan in a single year. Well - known institutions such as Shenzhen Capital Group, Yunqi Capital, and Puhua Capital are all on its list of investors. Obtaining seven rounds of financing in less than a year is quite rare in the entire history of robot financing.
In the financing of the robotics track in 2025, the proportion of projects reaching the level of hundreds of millions of yuan is significantly higher than in previous years, and there are also many projects with single - round financings reaching hundreds of millions of yuan. Among them, there are more than 40 projects in the embodied intelligence track with financings reaching the level of hundreds of millions of yuan. Large - scale financings frequently occur, and many of them are jointly invested by multiple leading institutions, indicating the strong optimism of capital towards such projects.
The capital market is casting a vote of confidence in the future of embodied intelligence with a series of intensive "real - money" investments.
02 The Birth of the "Hundred - Million - Yuan Club", and Continuous "Order Explosions" in the Commercialization Year
"Order explosions" have become the decisive signal in the commercialization year of embodied intelligence. Its value is being realized through one hundred - million - yuan order after another, fulfilling the commercial promise.
According to incomplete statistics, as of September this year, there were a total of 17 orders worth over 10 million yuan in the robotics field. Ubtech, Zhipu Robotics, Galaxy Universal, Zhipingfang, Stardust Intelligence, Yuanli Unlimited, and Songyan Power have entered the "Club of Hundred - Million - Yuan Orders".
Zhipingfang reached a strategic cooperation of nearly 500 million yuan with Huizhi IoT, a wholly - owned subsidiary of Huike Group. It plans to deploy over 1,000 AlphaBot series wheeled humanoid robots in Huike's global production bases within three years. This is the first large - scale application project of embodied intelligence in the global semiconductor display field. Previously, Zhipingfang's robots have been deployed in factories such as Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor and Jingneng Micro, covering the entire process from parts assembly to quality inspection and testing, helping partner factories improve process consistency and reduce labor dependence.
Ubtech's business layout focuses on the automotive manufacturing and logistics fields. The order scale and cooperation scope continue to expand. It has successively won a 250 - million - yuan procurement contract for humanoid robots from a well - known domestic enterprise and won the bid for the procurement project of Miyi Automobile with 90.5115 million yuan. As of now, Ubtech's Walker series has entered the factories of more than a dozen automobile enterprises such as NIO, BYD, and Zeekr, with a cumulative winning - bid amount of over 246 million yuan.
And the single - contract signing amount of 260 million yuan by Yuanli Unlimited Robotics set a record in the global embodied intelligence field, also marking that embodied intelligence has officially entered a new stage of replicable and large - scale implementation from the "verification period".
In addition to the above - mentioned orders worth hundreds of millions of yuan, in the third quarter of this year, there were also multiple orders for humanoid robots worth tens of millions of yuan in China. In July, Zhipu Robotics and Unitree Technology Co., Ltd. in Hangzhou jointly won the bid for the humanoid biped robot OEM project of China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Company, with a total amount of 124 million yuan, among which Unitree's winning - bid amount was 46.05 million yuan.
Among the orders worth tens of millions of yuan, Leju Robotics won the bid for the "Phase II of the Humanoid Robot Data Training Center" project with a quotation of 82.95 million yuan in August this year; Qingbao Robotics also revealed that as of September, its cumulative annual sales had exceeded 50 million yuan.
Galaxy Universal's embodied robots have been deployed on a large scale in fields such as industry, warehousing and logistics, urban intelligent services, and medical care and rehabilitation. The cumulative shipment volume has exceeded 1,000 units. In the industrial field, it has obtained strategic cooperation with domestic and foreign leading enterprises such as CATL, Bosch Germany, Zeekr, and SERES. In the fields of warehousing and logistics and urban intelligent services, its humanoid robots have achieved the real - world implementation of a 7×24 - hour autonomous vending retail store and a warehouse with hundreds of robots globally. In the medical care and rehabilitation field, it has carried out in - depth cooperation with Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, West China Hospital Group, and Peking University School of Medicine, and humanoid robots have been applied in hospital wards, pharmacies, and medical guidance.
The continuous emergence of large - scale orders is a strong signal that the embodied intelligence industry is moving towards the commercialization year. For the investment institutions behind, this is not only a verification of the enterprise's value but also means that the investment logic is shifting from "betting on technology" to "looking at revenue", and the return path has become clearer and more predictable.
The emergence of orders enables investment institutions to shift from relying on "story - based" indicators such as the technical team and patents to more solid financial indicators such as order amount, customer quality, gross profit margin, and delivery ability to value enterprises, which reduces the uncertainty of subsequent investment decisions. Ubtech achieved a revenue of 620 million yuan in the first half of 2025 (a year - on - year increase of 27.5%), and the acceleration of the commercialization process provided strong support for its valuation.
For early - stage VC/PE that "bet" on these enterprises, large - scale orders are a key step for the enterprises to mature and finally achieve capital exit through mergers and acquisitions or independent IPOs.
The combination of "order explosions" and "hopes of investment returns" indicates that the embodied intelligence industry has passed the "concept verification" and is now undergoing a more rigorous "market verification". It has initiated a commercial transformation from "whether it can be made" to "whether it can be sold, used satisfactorily, and make money".
03 Who Will Be the Next "King of Investment"?
The reason why "order explosions" excite investors is that they light up the first few key signposts on the road to "making money".
And making money is the ultimate goal that investors focus on.
When Ubtech went public in 2023, Zhou Jian, the founder, Xiong Youjun, the CTO, and Xia Zuoquan, the angel investor, jointly held 51.17% of the shares as persons acting in concert. Tencent, holding 6.15% of the shares, is Ubtech's largest institutional shareholder, and Qiming Venture Partners, holding 5.67% of the shares, is the second - largest institutional shareholder. There are more than 50 other shareholders in total, and the equity structure is quite complex.
In 2013, Xia Zuoquan, an angel investor, invested 8 million yuan in Ubtech at a valuation of 36 million yuan. When Ubtech encountered financial difficulties later, he also provided timely assistance through personal loans several times, with a cumulative investment of over 16 million yuan. It is reported that on the day Ubtech went public in 2023, its market value reached a maximum of about 38 billion Hong Kong dollars, and Xia Zuoquan's 5.63% shareholding was worth over 2.1 billion Hong Kong dollars.
This means that Xia Zuoquan's initial investment in Ubtech at a valuation of 36 million yuan ten years ago obtained a book return of over 1,000 times.
As an investment institution, Qiming Venture Partners exclusively invested in Ubtech's Series A financing in 2015 and accompanied the company until its listing, obtaining substantial returns as an early - stage institutional investor. After the listing, Tencent, holding 6.15% of the shares, became Ubtech's largest institutional shareholder.
Ubtech's recent breakthroughs in orders and deliveries are the keys to supporting its valuation, enabling investors to exit, and realizing commercial value.
As a comparison, Unitree Technology, the new - generation "Spring Festival Gala Robot", has many similarities in its financing path with Ubtech: from 2016 to 2018 at the beginning of its establishment, Unitree Technology completed the angel - round financing with the support of angel investors and VC institutions. From 2019 to 2022, the Pre - A round, Series A, Series B, and Series B+ financings were respectively led by well - known VC institutions such as Sequoia China Seed Fund, Shunwei Capital, Matrix Partners, and Dunhong Asset, with financing amounts of tens of millions of yuan, tens of millions of US dollars, and hundreds of millions of yuan respectively.
Shenzhen Capital Group made a heavy - investment layout when Unitree Technology's valuation was only in the billions. As its valuation soared to 12 billion yuan and it entered the IPO sprint stage, Shenzhen Capital Group is also about to enter the period of realizing substantial returns.
Driven by the market, the valuations of star embodied intelligence enterprises have continued to rise in multiple rounds of financing, bringing significant investment returns to the early - stage investment institutions.
According to the analysis of First New Voice, based on the estimation that the valuation of robots in the angel - round of the investment market is 100 - 300 million yuan and the single - investment fund does not exceed 10 million yuan, there seems to be an obvious echelon division in the current early - stage investment returns.
Galaxy Universal, Zhipu Robotics, Unitree Technology, Mech-Mind Robotics, etc. are currently in the first echelon with an early - stage investment return rate of 100 - 200 times.
According to the speculation of First New Voice, the early - stage investors of Galaxy Universal Robotics - Matrix Partners and BlueRun Ventures - have achieved an investment return rate of up to 200 times on the project.
For Zhipu Robotics, one of its investment institutions, Miracle Plus, usually invests about 300,000 US dollars in the angel - round. According to the estimated proportion of 5% - 10%, the corresponding valuation is about 50 - 100 million yuan. Currently, the project's valuation is 15 billion yuan, and its investment return rate has reached over 150 times.
For Unitree Technology which is sprinting for IPO, Shenzhen Capital Group, which participated in the angel - round and made a heavy - investment layout, has already exceeded the "hundred - fold" milestone in investment returns. Its final investment return still needs to be