VCs are starting to reevaluate the robotics bubble.

Recently, the robotics sector has been witnessing continuous rounds of financing. Companies such as Zhongqing, Luming, UniX AI, and Yun Shenchu have successively announced the completion of financing rounds.

In terms of financing rounds, except for Yun Shenchu which has entered the Series C, most of the companies are still in the relatively early Angel, Pre - A, and Series A rounds. The "+" sign has started to appear frequently. For example, UniX AI, which has just completed two rounds of Angel financing, namely Angel ++++ and Angel +++++ rounds; Zhongqing, which completed its Series A, also carried out a combined financing of micro - rounds with the A1+ and A2 rounds on the basis of its previous Pre - A++ and A1 rounds. We have previously discussed this financing phenomenon of increasingly long "+" signs, and now it seems to be a common practice in the industry.

In terms of financing amounts, it seems that as long as a company steps into this sector, it is quite natural to secure hundreds of millions of yuan in financing. Yun Shenchu received 500 million yuan; Zhongqing raised a total of 1 billion yuan in its Pre - A++ and A1 rounds; Luming also secured hundreds of millions of yuan; and UniX AI raised a total of 300 million yuan in its two Angel rounds.

Increasingly More "+" Signs in Financing

This year, China Venture Capital News published two articles, namely "The Angel Round Also Starts with '++'" and "A Project Is Already Seeking Series A+++++ Financing". Among the companies in this wave of financing, the typical representatives of Angel ++ are UniX AI and Luming Robotics.

On December 5th, UniX AI announced the completion of two rounds of Angel ++++ and Angel +++++ financing, totaling 300 million yuan. The investment was participated by institutions such as Sichuan Business Fund, Wuzhong Financial Holding, Yihua Capital, Qingyu Fund, Tahoe Venture Capital, as well as several listed companies and industrial partners. The old shareholder, Senner Capital, increased its investment. This is the company's fifth round of financing within half a year.

The company was established less than a year ago. Its founder was born in 2000, graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in computer science, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science at Yale University. In 2024, Yang Fengyu suspended his Ph.D. studies and started his entrepreneurial journey.

On December 8th, Luming Robotics announced the completion of two rounds of Pre - A1 and Pre - A2 financing, with an amount of hundreds of millions of yuan. Among them, the Pre - A1 round was led by CDH Investments, followed by Nanjing Venture Capital, Jinjing Capital, and Jingu Co., Ltd. The Pre - A2 round was invested by Shenergy Chengyi. The financing will be used for the company's continuous investment in the fields of embodied intelligence data and hardware.

This company was also founded in 2024, founded by Yu Chao, the former person in charge of the humanoid robot business at Dreame. The founder graduated from Tsinghua University, with degrees in mathematics, energy and power engineering, and aerospace, and has nearly 10 years of experience in the R & D and industrialization of embodied robots.

At the capital level, Luming Robotics has a rapid financing rhythm: it completed three rounds of financing in the first half of the year, with a total of nearly 200 million yuan in the Angel round. In April this year, the company announced the completion of two rounds of nearly 100 million yuan in the Angel and Angel + rounds; at the end of May, it announced the completion of the Angel ++ round of financing, with investors including Fosun RZ Capital, Dematic Technology, and Wuzhong Financial Holding.

Zhongqing Robotics is a representative of the Series A "+" in this wave. On December 8th, Zhongqing Robotics announced the completion of a new round of A1+ and A2 financing. Among them, the A2 round was led by the old shareholder Huangpu River Capital in conjunction with Henan Investment Group Huirong Fund and the old shareholder Huakong Fund. Other old shareholders such as Leishi Capital and Fortune VC continued to increase their holdings. Prior to this, in July, the company had completed a total of 1 billion yuan in financing in the Pre - A++ and A1 rounds.

Different from the elite entrepreneurial teams of the previous two companies, Zhao Tongyang, the boss of Zhongqing, is a serial entrepreneur with an associate degree. In 2012, he founded Anxinke Technology based on the Internet of Things, and grew the company to an annual revenue of over 100 million yuan, earning his first pot of gold. He and Wang Xingxing, the founder of Unitree, are both grass - roots entrepreneurs and once had an intersection. However, due to differences in technical paths, the two eventually went their separate ways. After several years of twists and turns, until the humanoid robot sector witnessed a market explosion, both of them began to shine.

The increasingly long "+" signs after the early rounds such as the Angel and Series A are not a rare financing phenomenon this year. As analyzed in a previous article by China Venture Capital News, from the perspective of the investment rhythm of a Series A company, each "+" means the splitting of a large - scale financing. Except for very top - tier projects, for many projects, it is difficult to achieve the next technological breakthrough with a single financing, so it is quite understandable that Series A projects have multiple "+" signs.

However, the financing amount in the "Angel Round" is usually between 3 million and 15 million yuan, with a relatively low valuation. If a single sum of funds cannot support a project in the Angel Round, it indicates two situations. One is that the project is complex enough, and the other is that the market funds are becoming increasingly tight.

Zhu Xiaohu Talks about Robotics Again

The intense competition is not only reflected in the financing rhythm but also in the expansion of production capacity.

Recently, Yun Shenchu, which has received Series C financing, has significantly accelerated its development this year. The company was founded in 2017 and is listed as one of the "Six Little Dragons" in Hangzhou. In April this year, it released the wheel - legged composite quadruped robot Bobcat M20. In early October, it launched the industry - level humanoid robot DR02. At the end of October, the pilot base for embodied intelligence started construction in Xihu District, Hangzhou. On the first day of December, Beijing Yun Shenchu Technology Co., Ltd. was established.

Shortly after the financing news was announced, Henan Zhongqing Robotics Co., Ltd. was established, with its registered address in the High - tech Zone of Zhengzhou. In September this year, at the 15th China Henan International Investment and Trade Fair, Zhao Tongyang revealed that a subsidiary would be established in Zhengzhou to quickly promote the establishment of a production line with an annual output of 5,000 robots. In addition, Zhongqing is also building its own production line in Honghualing Industrial Zone, Nanshan District, making full preparations for the mass delivery of PM01 and T800.

Everyone is competing for financing and expanding production lines, but what are robots actually used for? This seemingly simple question is still difficult to answer. It's hard to say which company has explored clear enough application scenarios at present.

At the beginning of the year, Zhu Xiaohu poured cold water on the hot topic of embodied intelligence. "Our angel fund has invested in some early - stage embodied intelligence projects in the past few years, and we have been exiting in the past few months... I asked the CEOs of these companies, where are your potential commercial customers? I feel that the customers they mentioned are just imagined. Who would spend hundreds of thousands of yuan to buy a robot to do these jobs?"

At that time, Zhao Tongyang responded to these remarks on his WeChat Moments. "Denying the future based on what one sees in the present is not what a person of his level should do." He even stated that "it is a disgrace to take such capital's money." In his opinion, humanoid robots will be almost everywhere within five years, which is the most exciting industrial revolution since humans learned to make tools.

Of course, entrepreneurs and investors have different views on things from different positions. However, when the news of the bankruptcy of K - Scale came out in November this year, many people re - examined Zhu Xiaohu's views. The founding team wrote very directly in the bankruptcy email: Humanoid robots need to rely on scale to reduce costs. "If we cannot reduce the unit economic cost through financing and scale amortization like Unitree, Booster, Engine AI, and Noetix, we cannot make our products viable."

In other words, without orders, there will be no financing; without financing, the cost cannot be reduced; and without cost reduction, no orders can be obtained. Once this closed - loop is broken, the company will quickly enter a "death spiral".

Recently, when Zhu Xiaohu was asked again about the bubble in embodied intelligence, he said that it is meaningless to talk about this issue. "The consensus is too concentrated. It's not interesting to invest." At least for VCs, it is becoming increasingly difficult to earn excess returns.

This article is from the WeChat official account "East 40th Capital", written by Wei Xianghui and published by 36Kr with authorization.