The Ice and Fire of Magic Atoms: Completes a New Round of 500 Million in Financing, Founder Departs During Critical IPO Period
On March 10, Magic Atom, a star company in the robot track that became popular after appearing on the Spring Festival Gala, completed a new round of financing of 500 million yuan. Meanwhile, Magic Atom's billion - yuan ecological fund was launched in Wuxi, forming a dual - line layout of "financing + fundraising" around embodied intelligence applications, with the overall scale of leveraged funds exceeding 10.5 billion yuan.
Not long ago, Wu Changzheng, the founder and former president of the company, left the company and has now started his own business.
Public information shows that Wu Changzheng has rich work experience in the robot field. He has successively served as the core R & D leader of Xiaomi's robots and the R & D leader of quadruped robots at Pudu Technology. Regarding his sudden departure, an insider revealed that it was due to a disagreement between Wu Changzheng and the shareholders on the company's development concept. However, Magic Atom denied this.
It is worth noting that Wu Changzheng's departure coincided with a critical period for Magic Atom to prepare for an IPO. Gu Shitao, the co - founder of the company, once said that Magic Atom is arranging the listing schedule at the fastest speed, and there may be new news in the secondary market in 2026.
Some market insiders believe that the founder is the soul of a company. In the current increasingly competitive robot industry, Wu Changzheng's departure may have a certain impact on the company's development.
Wu Changzheng Suddenly Resigns Soon After the Company's Sudden Rise to Fame
Magic Atom shone brightly at the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Horse.
On January 23, Magic Atom officially announced that it had become the strategic partner for intelligent robots of the 2026 Spring Festival Gala of China Media Group.
In the opening program of the Spring Festival Gala, Magic Atom's humanoid robot MagicBot Z1 demonstrated a "Thomas 360°" stunt, becoming the first humanoid robot of the same size in the industry to complete this action.
In the subsequent song program "Intelligent Manufacturing for the Future", Magic Atom's robots appeared again to perform a dance, achieving multi - robot coordinated hip - hop choreography.
In the program "Standing at the Forefront" at the Yibin, Sichuan branch venue, Magic Atom's MagicDog robotic dogs faced off against robotic pandas. More than a hundred robotic pandas appeared on the stage at the same time, completing running, formation, and dance choreography actions in the city square. It is understood that this is also the first time in the world that more than a hundred quadruped robots have achieved synchronized performances on a public stage.
Gu Shitao, the co - founder of Magic Atom, believes that "this year's Spring Festival Gala, what Magic Atom brought was not just a performance art, but also a full - dimensional technological review."
However, before the joy of the Spring Festival Gala popularity faded, there was a major personnel change at the star robot company Magic Atom.
On March 5, Lanjing News quoted an insider as saying that Wu Changzheng, the founder and former president of the humanoid robot enterprise Magic Atom, had left the company and had now started his own business. Subsequently, Magic Atom confirmed this news to Hongxing Capital Bureau.
As the core founder of Magic Atom, Wu Changzheng has an outstanding resume.
Public information shows that after graduating from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a postgraduate degree, Wu Changzheng has been working in the robot field. In 2018, he joined Pudu Technology and was responsible for the R & D of quadruped robots.
In 2021, Wu Changzheng joined Xiaomi and led the team to complete the R & D of Xiaomi's bionic quadruped robot CyberDog "Tiedan".
In January 2024, Magic Atom, incubated by Dreame Technology, was established. Its core team came from Xiaomi's "Tiedan" robot project, and Wu Changzheng, as one of the founders, led the R & D and mass production of several quadruped robots of the company.
Regarding the core reason for Wu Changzheng's departure, the aforementioned insider pointed out that there was a disagreement between him and the shareholders on the company's development concept. Coupled with the current critical window period for the industrialization of humanoid robots, it ultimately prompted Wu Changzheng to choose independent entrepreneurship. However, Magic Atom denied this.
It is worth noting that Wu Changzheng's departure was not without signs. Tianyancha information shows that recently, Wu Changzheng has gradually resigned from his positions in several companies under Magic Atom.
In mid - January this year, Wu Changzheng resigned from the position of general manager of Magic Atom Robot Technology (Wuxi) Co., Ltd., only retaining his position as a director. By March, he further resigned from the positions of legal representative and director of Magic Atom Robot Technology (Wuxi) Co., Ltd., and the relevant powers were taken over by Chen Chunyu, the co - founder and CTO of the company.
In addition, from February to March this year, Wu Changzheng also withdrew from his positions in several companies such as Magic Workshop Robot Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. and Magic Atom Robot Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
A person close to Magic Atom said that the overall R & D work of the company has been taken over by CTO Chen Chunyu. At present, the company's technical team is stable, and the relevant business and technology R & D are also progressing steadily according to the annual plan.
On March 6, Magic Atom issued an announcement disclosing a series of important adjustments to the senior management team. Among them, Chen Chunyu continued to serve as the co - founder and CTO of Magic Atom.
In addition, Magic Atom also announced that Zhang Tao would serve as the person - in - charge of Magic Atom's embodied model; Wu Zhengfang would serve as the person - in - charge of Magic Atom's embodied data platform; Gao Chunchao would serve as the person - in - charge of Magic Atom's joint modules; Li Kedi would serve as the person - in - charge of Magic Atom's developer ecosystem.
At the same time, the company also appointed Li Xiang, a professor and doctoral supervisor at Tsinghua University, as the chief scientist.
The announcement did not mention Wu Changzheng's whereabouts.
Departure May Affect the Company's IPO Process
It is worth noting that Wu Changzheng's departure coincided with a critical period for Magic Atom to prepare for an IPO. Some market insiders believe that the departure of the founder may have a certain impact on Magic Atom's IPO process.
On January 23, Gu Shitao, the co - founder of Magic Atom, revealed in an interview with a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald that Magic Atom may have new news in the secondary market as early as 2026, and the company is arranging the listing schedule at the fastest speed.
Gu Shitao believes that although embodied intelligence is still in a very early stage of commercialization, the competition in the industry will ultimately become a competition for resources, funds, and talents.
"So on the eve of the increasingly fierce competition for resources, funds, and talents, we need to do two things. The first thing is to quickly complete the commercialization closed - loop to ensure that the company can have a strong and stable cash flow in the future from the business side; the second thing is to hope to attract as many market resources as possible through relatively diversified means in the secondary market to support the global vision. Therefore, the company is accelerating the overall listing process." Gu Shitao said.
As a rising star in the robot track, Magic Atom focuses on the R & D and application of general robots and embodied intelligence technology. Its products include general humanoid robots and bionic quadruped robots, covering multiple scenarios such as industry, commerce, and households.
Relevant reports show that Magic Atom has a self - research rate of up to 90% at the hardware level, comprehensively covering core components such as joint modules, dexterous hands, reducers, and drivers. It is one of the few teams in the world with the full - stack self - research ability for general robots.
At the software level, the company has also independently developed a general embodied intelligence system, which can support the rapid deployment and efficient collaborative management of humanoid robots. In addition, in the construction of the manufacturing system, Magic Atom has formed a full - chain closed - loop ability from core components to the whole machine production through its own production line.
Some believe that the closed - loop ecosystem of "full - stack self - research technology + full - link layout + scenario - based application" built by Magic Atom provides a fundamental guarantee for its commercialization process.
The advantages of this ecological closed - loop have also attracted many financing institutions. Yuan Feng, the founding partner of Xinlian Capital, said that he is optimistic about the effective closed - loop of Magic Atom in "ontology - scenario - data", and the two parties will explore cooperation at the upstream chip and system solution levels.
In fact, since its establishment, Magic Atom has been favored by capital. In December 2024, Magic Atom received an angel - round financing of 150 million yuan from Zhuochuang Investment and Yipu Capital; in May of the following year, the company completed a new round of strategic financing of hundreds of millions of yuan. The investors included Hechuang Zhiyuan, Xinlian Fund, Huaying Capital, etc., and Zhuochuang Investment and Yipu Capital further increased their investment.
On March 10, some media reported that Magic Atom completed a new round of financing of 500 million yuan. At the same time, Magic Atom, together with Sky Workshop Venture Capital Fund and Liangxi District, Wuxi, launched a billion - level industrial fund. This fund focuses on the key links in the upstream and downstream of the embodied intelligence industry chain, including algorithms, computing power, AI infrastructure, core components of robots, new robot forms, and the development of end - execution tools and specific application scenarios.
It is worth noting that after Yu Hao, the founder of Dreame Technology, took control of Jiamei Packaging at the end of last year, there were rumors in the market that Magic Atom might list through a back - door listing of Jiamei Packaging, which once caused the latter's stock price to rise by more than 600% in 32 trading days.
However, on February 12, Jiamei Packaging denied this rumor. Jiamei Packaging said that Magic Atom's current capitalization path has nothing to do with the company. The latter is planning an independent capital operation, and the relevant capital operation plan will be completely independent of the listed company, and there is no plan to inject it into the listed company in any form.
Increasing Industry Competition
According to a report by National Business Daily, affected by the popularity at the Spring Festival Gala, the relevant robots of Magic Atom were once in short supply.
However, in the current wave of humanoid robots, this technology "dark horse" that has been established for less than two years also faces multiple challenges.
The latest "Analysis Report on the Development Prospect Forecast and Investment Strategy Planning of the Chinese Humanoid Robot (Android) Industry" released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute shows that according to the calculations of the Humanoid Robot Scene Application Alliance, the market scale of Chinese humanoid robots will exceed 9 billion yuan in 2025.
Among them, CR5 (the sum of the market shares of the top five enterprises) is close to 60%, and CR8 (the sum of the market shares of the top eight enterprises) is as high as 76%, showing an obvious head - gathering effect in the market.
From the perspective of the order volume obtained by humanoid robot whole - machine manufacturing enterprises, as of November 2025, Ubtech ranked first in the industry with an order volume of up to 1.3 billion yuan, and its main product is Walker S2; Unitree followed closely with an order volume of about 1.2 billion yuan; Yuejiang became the main model for human - machine collaboration in the industrial scenario with its CRA series of industrial collaborative robotic arms, with an order volume of about 1.1 billion yuan, ranking third in the industry.
The Qianzhan Industry Research Institute pointed out that since the current domestic leading humanoid robot enterprises have established barriers in core technology and supply - chain integration, customers are more inclined to choose leading players with high technological maturity and stable delivery capabilities, while small and medium - sized manufacturers are restricted by R & D funds and the self - research ability of core components, and most can only occupy specific industry shares.
In addition, affected by the "Spring Festival Gala effect", the financing in the embodied intelligence track also shows a significant head - concentration trend.
According to Wall Street News, on March 2, Galaxy General completed a new round of financing of 2.5 billion yuan, and its valuation has exceeded 3 billion US dollars, continuing to lead the unlisted enterprises. At the same time, Unitree's valuation has also reached 12 billion yuan.
Some analysts pointed out that as the robot industry in 2026 moves from the verification stage to the large - scale stage, participating enterprises are facing high industrial - cycle costs and external competitive pressures. In this context, enterprises with weak financing capabilities are likely to fall behind and have difficulty surviving in the future price and cost wars.
At the critical stage of IPO preparation, what impact will the sudden "exit" of the founder have on Magic Atom? Radar Finance will continue to pay attention.
This article is from the WeChat public account “Radar Finance”, author: Zhou Hui, editor: Shen Hai. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.