ZhiYuan and Unitree are spending a staggering 100 million on advertising. Do they still have money for R & D?
Abstract: The 100 million yuan in advertising fees has amazed many robot companies. Some people sighed, "If we had this amount of funds, we would prefer to invest in R & D."
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On December 10th, according to the self - media Sajia Junze, several embodied intelligence companies are participating in the competition for advertising sponsorship of a large - scale evening party. Among them, Zhipu Robotics bid 60 million yuan first, and then Unitree Technology followed with an offer of 100 million yuan. The two sides are locked in a fierce competition for top - level exposure resources.
Spending hundreds of millions on marketing may be common in the Internet field, but it is an astonishing move for the robot industry, which is still in the early stage of industrialization and generally has weak profitability. A practitioner in the robot industry told Phoenix Tech, "This amount is astonishing. If we had this money, we would prefer to invest it in R & D."
This is not the first time that Zhipu Robotics and Unitree Technology have heavily invested in marketing. Through large - scale exposure and capital operation, some companies that have been established for only one or two years are developing at an unprecedented speed.
The Aggressive Marketing Strategy Behind 60 Million Yuan
During the Spring Festival in 2025, Unitree Technology's creative dance "YangBOT" in cooperation with actors was refreshing. More than a dozen humanoid robots wearing Northeast cotton - padded jackets nimbly waved handkerchiefs and danced in perfect harmony with the dancers. The robot that appeared on stage this time was the H1, Unitree's first full - size humanoid robot, whose commercial delivery started in October 2023. This performance not only made the H1 famous overnight but also officially kicked off the marketing campaign of robot companies.
According to incomplete statistics from Phoenix Tech, within less than a year, major robot brands have successively tried various marketing forms such as fashion week shows, e - commerce live - streaming sales, fighting variety shows, live - streaming walking competitions, and sponsoring large - scale evening parties. Recently, the price has soared to over 100 million.
It is reported that in this round of sponsorship for a large - scale evening party, Zhipu Robotics offered a high price of 60 million yuan, which immediately scared off several companies that wanted to participate in a small - scale joint sponsorship.
The aforementioned robot industry practitioner told Phoenix Tech, "If following the logic of enterprise - level services, there is usually no need for large - scale marketing investment."
Even so, some consumer - grade robot brands also told Phoenix Tech, "These amounts are still quite exaggerated for the industry."
Many practitioners believe that Zhipu's large - scale investment comes from its "resource - based approach" in its genes.
Different from Unitree Technology, which has been established for 9 years, Zhipu was founded in February 2023, but it has developed at an astonishing speed in the industry.
An investment industry insider once sighed about its Huawei - affiliated background. Not only is Peng Zhihui, the co - founder and CTO, a former Huawei "Genius Youth".
According to 36Kr, under the leadership of Deng Taihua, the CEO of Zhipu Robotics, the "Huawei - affiliated" team has shown a completely different style and approach from other embodied intelligence start - up companies. Many industry insiders describe it as "starting a business in the way of running a large company" and "initiating all - factor competition from Day One".
"Zhipu adopts an ecological approach - quickly becoming a large company while incubating other start - up companies to establish its own industrial ecosystem. To be honest, this approach doesn't seem like that of a traditional start - up company," Xu Huazhe, the co - founder of Xinghaitu, once commented in an interview.
Another executive of a mid - tier robot company also told Phoenix Tech, "I find it hard to evaluate Zhipu's approach. It will definitely show results in the short term, but in the long run, if a start - up company tries to do everything, the probability of success is probably not high."
80 Billion Yuan in Financing in One Year: Where Did It Go?
Data from IT Juzi shows that in 2025, there were 557 investment and financing events related to the domestic robot industry chain, with a total financing amount exceeding 83.9 billion yuan. The valuations of leading companies such as Zhipu and Unitree have reached tens of billions of yuan.
Some industry insiders point out that without hundreds of millions in financing, it is difficult to support the long - term development of the robot industry.
Put simply, the main components of a robot are the body and the brain. The aforementioned robot company executive told Phoenix Tech that the most money - consuming part is the brain. "If you only focus on the body, it doesn't cost much, and you can achieve a break - even point quickly. Most of the losses come from software investment, and the entry threshold for motion control algorithms and perception algorithms is very high." He also said that it is difficult for a robot company to invest in the "brain" until its revenue scale reaches 5 billion yuan. The corresponding shipment volume needs to reach hundreds of thousands to millions of units.
In terms of R & D expenditure, taking the publicly - listed company Ubtech as an example, it has maintained an annual R & D expenditure of 400 - 500 million yuan from 2020 to 2025. It can be seen that hundreds of millions in marketing expenses are by no means a small amount for any robot company.
In terms of R & D investment, Unitree takes a practical approach. In the first few years of its establishment, Unitree has always advocated self - research. Currently, it has the ability to self - develop core components such as high - performance motors, reducers, and controllers, and has achieved cost control through the localization of more than 90% of its core components.
In contrast, Zhipu takes a completely different path.
In July, Zhipu Robotics and related entities invested 2.1 billion yuan to gain control of 63.62% of the shares of the listed company Shangwei New Materials. This transaction caused the stock price of Shangwei New Materials to soar from 7.78 yuan on July 8th to 40.16 yuan on July 21st, with nine consecutive daily limit up.
Picture | Expedition A2
In August 2025, its official announced a specific investment plan called "Zhipu Plan A". This plan focuses on the field of embodied intelligence and plans to invest 4 billion yuan in the next three years to incubate 50 early - stage start - up projects, with the goal of creating a production value of 100 billion yuan.
Deng Taihua also said at a closed - door meeting in August that Zhipu is currently in a state where "it can raise funds whenever it wants". The company will reserve cash flow based on the bottom - line thinking that "even without any revenue, normal business operations can be maintained for three years".
He also said that Zhipu has invested in 15 early - stage projects, 70% of which are led by it, and the rest are invested in the seed and angel stages. In addition, Zhipu has jointly established at least 17 new companies and has entered the production capacity and distribution channels with the help of listed companies or local industrial groups.
In contrast, when also aiming for an IPO, Unitree Technology has chosen a more traditional path. On July 18, 2025, the China Securities Regulatory Commission website disclosed the "Guidance Filing Report for the Initial Public Offering and Listing of Hangzhou Unitree Technology Co., Ltd.". Unitree Technology has completed the IPO guidance filing with the Zhejiang Securities Regulatory Bureau. During this year's WRC, Wang Xingxing said that the company "is promoting some standard IPO procedures".
At that time, Wang Xingxing also said that he regarded listing as the "college entrance examination", a phased milestone for the company to move towards more mature management and more standardized operations, and also an explanation for the past nine - year efforts and the shareholders.
When Can the Mass - Production Threshold Be Crossed?
Why are they spending a lot of money to sponsor large - scale evening parties at this time? In addition to creating momentum for capital operation, many industry insiders believe that it may be related to their desire to enter the consumer - grade market. Another industry insider told Phoenix Tech that as the price of Unitree robots has dropped to 39,900 yuan, it means that it has stepped into the consumer - grade market. "Currently, many companies still focus on the enterprise - level market."
On September 24th this year, Jiang Qingsong, the senior vice - president of Zhipu, also revealed in a public speech that "next year (2026), the company will focus on the initial practice of entering factories and households, gradually moving from B2B to B2C."
Public data shows that the shipment volume of most robot companies in 2025 was in the thousands. The shipment volume of Unitree robots has always been relatively mysterious. Wang Xingxing said in September 2025 that "the shipment volume of humanoid robots is currently in the leading position globally, and it is very likely to exceed 50%."
Picture | Unitree G1 Humanoid Robot
In July 2025, Zhipu and Unitree jointly won a bid for a procurement project of humanoid robot OEM services worth about 124 million yuan from China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd., setting a record for the largest publicly - announced order in China at that time. Among them, Zhipu won the bid for the full - size humanoid robot package with 78 million yuan, and Unitree won the bid for the small - size robot and accessory package with 46.05 million yuan.
This record was soon broken. In October 2025, Ubtech won a bid for a scientific research and education - related humanoid robot order worth 126 million yuan. The successive emergence of large - value orders shows the initial release of market demand, mainly concentrated in fields such as industrial training, scientific research and education, and commercial display.
However, Wang Xingxing has a calm judgment on entering the household market. When talking about the important application scenarios of robots in June this year, he said that the household application scenario is indeed very challenging for robots, and it needs to be done step by step. Currently, applications in industries such as industry or agriculture are progressing faster.
As the biggest reference, a research report from CITIC Securities said that when Tesla released its Master Plan Part 4, it stated that humanoid robots are its core products. Elon Musk said that about 80% of Tesla's future value will come from the Optimus robot. However, its mass - production plan has also faced many setbacks this year. According to a report in December, the hardware design of its robot is close to finalization. Musk expects the Optimus V3.0 to be released in Q1 2026 and mass - production to start before the end of 2026.
Compared with capital operation and high - profile marketing, robot companies should present more application cases to make robots truly useful and even easy to use.
(Zhao Zikun also contributed to this article)
This article is from the WeChat official account "Phoenix Tech", author: Dong Yuqing, republished by 36Kr with permission.