The "brother and sister" have raised nearly 2 billion yuan. They work in a KTV, serving 250,000 people per day.

You may have seen the delivery robots in hotels: order takeout, and soon a small machine will deliver the meal to your room door. Recently, the company behind these robots, Youdi Robot, has been approved to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Youdi Robot specializes in "commercial service robots", which are delivery and cleaning robots that can move around in various public spaces such as hotels, restaurants, industrial parks, shopping malls, and cultural and entertainment venues.

The company was founded in 2013 and its predecessor was the terminal business unit of UTStarcom (China). Today, few people may remember UTStarcom, but you must have heard of "PHS", which was produced by the company. Youdi Robot emerged from this team and received angel - round investment from its former parent company in the same month of its establishment.

In the following more than a decade, the company has carried out 11 consecutive rounds of financing, and the latest progress is the completion of Series E. The investors include local - life giants like Ele.me of the Alibaba Group, industrial capitals such as BTG Homeinns, and even AI companies like iFlytek, and several "national - team" capitals have also joined.

With the popularity of humanoid robots, what kind of business is hidden behind the seemingly simple service robots?

- 01 -

Lu Ying and Gu Zhenjiang, the founders of Youdi Robot, have been engaged in communication and intelligent hardware for many years and were core engineers at UTStarcom. In 2013, Lu Ying led a group of colleagues from the former terminal business unit to start a business and founded Youdi Technology.

The company initially provided technical services related to autonomous driving and was even the only domestic partner of NVIDIA in this field. However, they soon found a real - world problem: the technology was cool, but it was slow to make money, and the project cycle often lasted for several years, which the company couldn't afford.

In 2016, the company changed its direction: it first focused on something that could be implemented immediately and was needed in real scenarios - indoor autonomous navigation robots. Moreover, it targeted two very specific areas: KTVs and hotels. The reason was simple - things were delivered very frequently in these places. If there were robots to do the legwork, the bosses would definitely be willing to give it a try, as it was more cost - effective than hiring people.

In 2017, Youdi launched its first product, "You Xiaodi", which was specifically responsible for delivering drinks in KTVs. The robot could move and deliver without complaining about being tired, and the effect was immediate.

However, although the technology advanced rapidly, the company didn't have much money in its account. In 2019, Shenzhen High - tech Investment Group offered a helping hand: it provided a 10 - million - yuan financing guarantee and helped the company apply for policy subsidies. It was this money that enabled the company to survive the most difficult cash - flow period.

Youdi's business model is also very down - to - earth: instead of selling robots, it rents them on a monthly basis. The cost is only about half of a service staff's salary. One "You Xiaodi" can handle two - thirds of the delivery volume on one floor of a KTV, which is extremely cost - effective for the boss, and the robots were quickly popularized.

In the same year, the company also launched "You Xiaomei" for hotels. By 2022, BTG Group, under Homeinns, invested in Youdi again, helping the company quickly promote its robots to more hotels.

A group of people who used to work on autonomous driving entering the relatively simple indoor delivery field was a case of attacking from a higher dimension. 70% of Youdi's team are R & D personnel, and the company independently masters core technologies such as navigation and obstacle avoidance.

Now, "You Xiaodi" and "You Xiaomei" are available in more than 600 cities, serving over 9,000 customers. Every day, more than 250,000 people receive their services.

Since its establishment, Youdi Robot has received 11 rounds of financing, and the group of investors behind it is quite representative.

In 2016, it received tens of millions of yuan in Series A from New Hengji Group and iFlytek.

In 2018, it got tens of millions of yuan in Series B from Legend Capital and Yuanhe Runxin.

Financing was intensive in 2019, and the company completed two rounds at once: Suodao Investment invested tens of millions of yuan in Series B2; in the same year, Snowball Capital led a 100 - million - yuan Series B3 investment.

2021 was a critical node: Yunfeng Capital and Ele.me led a 300 - million - yuan Series C investment; subsequently, Chengding Fund and Yunfeng Capital jointly invested 200 million yuan in Series C2.

In 2025, it completed the largest - scale strategic financing: institutions such as Fluidra and Yunqi Capital jointly invested 1 billion yuan.

According to public data, Youdi Robot has raised nearly 2 billion yuan in total.

If we look at the composition of investors, we can see three types of forces:

Industrial capitals: BTG Homeinns, Ele.me, etc. These enterprises are themselves the most important application scenarios for Youdi Robot, and investing is also a bet on their own future operating models.

Well - known VC/PEs: Legend Capital, Yunfeng Capital, Snowball Capital, 58 Industrial Fund, etc. They are betting on growth and technological routes.

"National - team" capitals: Chengding Fund, Xinshang Capital, China Merchants Capital, etc. They open up larger - scale implementation opportunities for Youdi in industrial parks, public spaces, hospital projects, etc.

Youdi Robot has won the recognition of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, the capital market, and policy resources, which is also an important reason why it has reached the pre - listing stage in a capital - intensive and long - term industry.

It's worth noting that Youdi Robot has a relatively strong "Alibaba flavor", with Ele.me and Yunfeng Capital together holding nearly 15% of the shares.

- 02 -

In 2024, the market size of China's service robot industry was about 73.8 billion yuan, a 22.9% increase from the previous year. Among all the segments, commercial service robots - such as delivery, cleaning, and public - service robots - accounted for the most important part.

In terms of production volume, China is also quite dominant in this industry. In 2024, the national production of service robots reached 10.519 million units, a year - on - year increase of 34.3%. Globally, Chinese manufacturers accounted for about 85% of the commercial service robot shipments, making China basically the global supply - chain center.

However, although the industry is booming, it's not easy to make money. Service robots have always faced a common problem: the growth fails to meet expectations. Why? The reasons are quite realistic:

· Many robots can only adapt to a small number of scenarios and lack versatility;

· The cost is high, and customers need to repeatedly evaluate whether it's worth it;

· Users' needs are diverse and often require a large amount of customization;

In other words, robots are not yet ready to become mass - market products.

In this context, Youdi Robot didn't compete in the "household robot" market but focused on three scenarios with real - world needs:

· Delivery needs in hotels and KTVs;

· Public cleaning in industrial parks and commercial areas;

· Replacing human labor for greeting guests in commercial venues.

These scenarios have one thing in common: high frequency of use, a real shortage of labor, and bosses willing to pay.

In terms of the industry landscape, China's service robot industry has not reached the stage where a single giant dominates, but some leading companies have emerged, such as Youdi, Keenon Robotics, Yunji Technology, Dakwo Technology, Ninebot, and OrionStar. There are not many companies that have actually gone public, and most are still in the financing stage, so the industry as a whole is quite fragmented.

Do these robot companies make money? Take Yunji Technology, another listed company, as a comparison. From 2022 to 2024, Yunji Technology's revenues were 161 million yuan, 145 million yuan, and 245 million yuan respectively; its net profits were losses of 365 million yuan, 265 million yuan, and 185 million yuan respectively. The total loss in three years was 800 million yuan.

This highlights another problem: after service robots become specialized and refined, they will be highly dependent on limited scenarios for revenue generation.

- 03 -

The service - robot industry has been stuck in a fundamental contradiction in recent years: scenarios require "human - like generalized intelligence", but commercial reality only allows enterprises to afford "low - cost, specialized equipment".

This has led to the situation in the past decade where service robots are either not useful enough, not cheap enough, or unable to be scaled up.

For service - robot enterprises, the success of commercialization depends on a simple formula: labor - saving cost > hardware cost + deployment cost + maintenance cost.

In reality, the hardware cost of robots is high and cannot be reduced to less than 1,000 yuan like a sweeping robot; enterprise customers have strict requirements for ROI and don't just look at how "cool" the robots are, but whether they are "worth it"; the deployment cost of robots is high due to huge differences in scenarios; and the maintenance cost exists in the long term.

So, it's common to see that a food - delivery robot can't save the salary of a service staff in a year; hotel robots still need human supervision during peak hours; hospital robots have complex processes and extremely high adaptation costs.

As a result, most products remain as "display items, gimmicks, and marketing assets" rather than "production tools".

Here, some friends may wonder: why is it still difficult to implement robots despite the progress of AI?

Robots don't lack AI but the engineering - system ability to complete tasks at the lowest cost.

This is specifically reflected in three difficulties:

1. Insufficient cognitive ability to handle the real environment

Robots' understanding of the real world cannot be as generalized as that of humans. These are not algorithm problems but due to the complexity of the real world.

2. Poor economies of scale due to fragmented scenarios

Hotels ≠ restaurants ≠ hospitals ≠ shopping malls

The processes, maps, tasks, voices, and standards are completely different. Robot enterprises develop products once but can't sell many, and the cost can't be spread.

3. Hardware is a rigid cost, and the price reduction is slower than users' expectations

Different from algorithms and SaaS, there are motors, batteries, structural parts, and manufacturing processes; the scale of the supply chain is small, and the cost can't be reduced.

So, is there still an opportunity in the future?

The answer is not simply "yes" or "no". The real judgment logic is: when will robots "no longer be compared with humans"?

As long as robots are doing things that "humans can do and at a lower cost", they will face difficulties.

The real opportunity lies in robots doing "things that humans can't do", such as unmanned warehousing and night - time logistics, automatic delivery of medical consumables, and intelligent commercial - space operation.

These scenarios are not about replacing humans but expanding new efficiency boundaries.

In the future, the robot industry will explode, but only a small number of high - value, high - standard, and high - ROI scenarios will be fully taken over by robots.

Service robots should not be compared with "human - labor replacement" but should create efficiency dividends that humans can't directly achieve.

This article does not constitute any investment advice.

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