Didi Invested in a Robot Emoji Company | Exclusive Report by 36Kr

Author: Qiu Xiaofen

Editor: Su Jianxun

36Kr learned that "Anywit Robotics" has completed a Pre-A round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan. This round is invested by industrial capital including Didi Strategic Investment. The funds will be mainly used for the improvement of standardized products for the expressive head and the upgrade and iteration of the emotional interaction model.

Yunxiu Capital was the leading investor in the company's angel round and serves as the exclusive financial advisor for this round of financing.

Anywit Robotics was founded in December 2023 and is committed to creating multi-modal interactive robots with "vitality".

Currently, Anywit Robotics has launched a highly flexible head and facial component for humanoid robots, with a total of 34 degrees of freedom, which can achieve anthropomorphic embodied expressions, such as eye contact with humans and lip-syncing with voice.

In addition, the facial interaction component of Anywit Robotics is also equipped with a multi-modal large model, a self-developed small model for emotion generation, and the ability of a motion planning system that integrates multiple intents, enabling an emotional interaction experience with human users.

Schematic diagram of Anywit Robotics' expressive head

Cao Rongyun, the founder and CEO of Anywit Robotics, told 36Kr that their products lead the domestic market in functions such as head and facial degrees of freedom, expression generation, and lip-syncing, and can be compared with the industry's technological leader, Ameca, internationally.

Anywit Robotics is also currently promoting commercialization. It is understood that Anywit Robotics has launched an interactive robot with a head and facial component that can provide rich expressions, which is applied in scenarios such as education and scientific research, marketing and reception, and cultural and entertainment movies.

Previously, Anywit Robotics' multi-modal emotional interaction robot Anni was unveiled at the 2025 World Robot Conference and the 27th China Hi-Tech Fair.

Schematic diagram of Anywit Robotics' expressive head

Currently, Anywit Robotics has initially delivered educational robots and formed standardized products, realizing the scenario of robot teachers entering primary school classrooms.

Cao Rongyun, the founder and CEO of Anywit Robotics, told 36Kr that in the future, the company will continue to increase product exploration and is expected to achieve large-scale shipments of standardized robot head and facial components in 2026.

Cao Rongyun, the founder and CEO of Anywit Robotics, believes that the innovation of the interaction mode is the core driving force for the explosion of product penetration. Just as the invention of the graphical interface allowed computers to enter thousands of households, and the new designs such as the touch screen/APP ecosystem of the iPhone opened a new era of the mobile Internet, we believe that the maturity of robot facial expression interaction technology is expected to become an important breakthrough for the large-scale popularization of robots.

In terms of the team, the core team of Anywit Robotics graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China. They have been engaged in research in the field of human-robot emotional interaction for nearly 10 years and have participated in many international robot competitions and won championships.

Regarding this financing, Yunxiu Capital said: "The embodied intelligence track has entered the fast lane of development. The revolution in human-robot interaction technology is giving rise to many potential productization scenarios. A mature facial expression interaction technology solution has great application potential. After years of R & D accumulation, the Anywit Robotics team has formed an industry-leading full-stack robot expression solution and has achieved initial results in product exploration. We believe that with the support of capital, Anywit will continue to lead technological breakthroughs and product innovation in the field of human-robot emotional interaction."