Raised $270 million in two months, this company aims to become "the NVIDIA in the embodied intelligence field"

"In this (chip) industry, if you don't aim to be No.1, what else can you aim for?" said Wang Cong, CEO of D-Robotics. "The chip industry has always been like this — it's extremely difficult for the second or third-place players to achieve significant growth."

In an exclusive interview with China Entrepreneur, Wang Cong wore a dark brown leather jacket, which immediately brought Jensen Huang to mind. Both are in the chip track, and both share the uncompromising drive of "be the first, or don't do it at all."

He appears strong-willed and decisive, and enjoys debating with his employees, who in turn dare to challenge him. Yet he admits such debates are still not frequent enough. "I'm actually a total introvert, but I can switch to being a total extrovert in front of clients. I believe in saying the right thing for the right occasion."

Wang Xiao, Founding Partner of Ninebot Capital and one of D-Robotics' early investors, commented on Wang Cong: "He speaks very directly, has excellent execution, and is highly decisive. He means what he says, reacts quickly, and gives the impression of getting things done in no time." In the embodied intelligence track that demands rapid iteration, this style of Wang Cong's may well be one of the key reasons D-Robotics has stood out from the competition.

D-Robotics is a general-purpose robotics hardware and software base provider spun off from Horizon Robotics in early 2024, focusing on developing infrastructure for the embodied intelligence field. The company has built a product system covering chips, algorithms and software, with core offerings including the Sunrise series chips and RDK robotics developer kits. These can support computing demands of various robots such as humanoids, quadruped dogs, home service robots, companion robots, and logistics AMRs, making it a critical "shovel seller" in the embodied intelligence track.

In April 2026, D-Robotics announced the completion of its $150 million Series B2 financing round, with investors including Prosperity7 Ventures, Envision Group, MooHua Tech, Yunfeng Capital, T-Capital, LOOK CAPITAL, and Kaiyuan Capital, while existing shareholders Hillhouse Ventures, XUAN Capital, and Linear Capital also participated in the follow-on investment.

Source: The interviewee

From Wang Huai, Founding Partner of Linear Capital's perspective, D-Robotics' role in the embodied intelligence field is more like a foundational cornerstone. "As intelligent entities, every move a robot makes requires computing power to drive. In this scenario, D-Robotics is highly likely to become the NVIDIA of the embodied intelligence sector."

The "Fruit" Born from Horizon Robotics

In 2015, Wang Cong, who was pursuing his PhD at Wright State University in the United States, decided to drop out and start his own business. He felt that scientific research was not what he truly wanted to do or was good at, and he preferred to develop tangible products closely related to daily life that could be implemented in real scenarios.

He and several Chinese friends hit it off immediately, and started their entrepreneurial journey in a partner's garage. Whenever they had an idea, they would quickly program and test it. Half a year later, they secured funding and returned to China to expand their business.

Their initial business direction was "natural language processing + finance", with Wang Cong in charge of overseeing the domestic technology, sales, business development and product teams. But after three years of operation, he saw the true nature of this business: most clients were financial institutions, AI accounted for a very small proportion of the entire system, and most projects were custom-made, making standardization difficult. Essentially, they were not selling AI, but a small tool sustained by personal connections. They had always wanted to build a platform-level product, yet were trapped in the high-end outsourcing model. Three years later, Wang Cong chose to leave.

Looking back on this experience, Wang Cong believes the most valuable takeaway is a fundamental realization: "Whether choosing an industry or a business model, you must think clearly about the essence of the business from the very beginning." Although this entrepreneurial attempt was not a full success, it allowed him to grow rapidly and planted the seeds for his subsequent restart at D-Robotics.

From late 2017 to early 2018, Wang Cong kept pondering a question: How can AI become an independent product? He observed that at that time, Chinese AI companies generally only had two paths forward: one was to develop vertical solutions, become an integrator, and dig deep into a specific industry; the other was to focus on the underlying layer — namely chips — to build platform-level standardized products. Those companies that only focused on algorithms were basically either integrated by others or replaced by clients' in-house R&D teams.

With this judgment, Wang Cong communicated with many AI companies around 2018, and finally chose to join Horizon Robotics, believing it was the company most likely to reach the final success in the industry.

In 2018, Wang Cong officially joined Horizon Robotics, working in the strategy department to lead market exploration in the AIoT field.

In 2019, Horizon Robotics underwent a major strategic adjustment, deciding to fully focus on the smart vehicle assisted driving chip track, and the AIoT department was downsized from 400 people at its peak to just over 30 people.

Although their understanding of the robotics field was still vague at that time, they could already see clear demands and promising opportunities from some of their regular clients. He judged that the AIoT business unit did not have to be unviable — it just needed a strategic adjustment.

In early 2020, Wang Cong left a message on WeChat for Yu Kai, Founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics, expressing his wish to take over the AIoT business unit, which Yu Kai approved.

After taking over, on one hand, they needed to deliver and wrap up many ongoing client projects, and on the other hand, they had to stabilize the remaining "old teammates", as everyone was uncertain about the future. Looking back, although the performance target set by their department in the first year was not impressive, the business quality was actually better than when the team had 400 people.

Meanwhile, Wang Cong kept searching for the right direction. He believed that although chips could be applied in various industry scenarios, there must be a core track — a track that would long influence product definition, R&D direction and brand recognition. Therefore, he and his team kept looking for an industry that matched their capabilities and had continuously evolving demands for AI.

He argued that as a startup, the only opportunity was to find niche edge fields where tech giants invested little attention and resources. In these fields, the edge departments within large giants could not secure sufficient resources and would be the first to be abandoned when conflicts arose, which was exactly where startups could gain competitive advantages.

From this perspective, the robotics track caught his full attention: it was long-term tied to AI, with continuously growing demands for AI capabilities; there were no dominant giants in the chip sector comparable to Qualcomm in the mobile phone industry or Intel in the PC industry, and the market space was large enough. In 2021, the industry could foresee that robots would become popular in 10 or 20 years, even though the process would be relatively slow. At that time, Wang Cong's team already had a certain client base, and the lack of unified industry standards meant "opportunities for us instead".

At the end of 2021, the business focus officially shifted to robotics.

Source: AI-generated

With the direction set, the next step was to polish products and acquire clients. Looking back now, many of their initial client relationships were accumulated starting from 2022.

However, one thing kept holding them back: resources.

At that time, as an edge department with insufficient resources, they had to fight repeatedly for every resource application. Although the department's performance was growing, as an edge unit within a large company, the operational efficiency was far too low.

It was not until October 2022, when Tesla publicly unveiled its Optimus humanoid robot for the first time and Elon Musk started promoting the humanoid robot concept widely, that the industry's attention was fully ignited. The market timing became ripe, the business needed external resources to accelerate growth, and the spin-off of the department was officially put on the agenda.

Wang Cong began to prepare for the spin-off, "Every detail needed to be thought through, from the corporate structure, explanations to existing shareholders, employee resettlement, to the management of the new company."

After over half a year of preparation, at the end of 2023, Wang Cong's team launched the financing process, and named the new company "D-Robotics", which implies "the fruit from Horizon Robotics". In January 2024, D-Robotics was officially registered and established, with the entire original team of the business unit embarking on a new entrepreneurial journey.

Financing: From Difficult to Smooth

The initial financing process was far more challenging than expected.

At that time, humanoid robots had just become a hot topic, and investors generally believed they should prioritize investing in robot body manufacturers first, then the supply chain, showing little interest in chip suppliers. Wang Cong himself did not have much credibility accumulation in the capital market, so investors naturally questioned the business plans he presented. Most critically, many investors were skeptical about Horizon Robotics spinning off D-Robotics.

"At that time, there were many spin-off cases in the Chinese market, some of which turned out to be capital schemes, with stories of asset stripping and money grabbing being heard from time to time. In addition, Horizon Robotics was on the eve of its IPO, and the capital market environment was unfavorable, making many investors doubt if this was just a capital manipulation," Wang Cong recalled. At first he tried to explain, but later he simply stopped: "Believe it if you want, or don't if you don't — there's nothing more to explain."

Wang Huai also stated that D-Robotics' first year of financing did not go smoothly. "Many investors thought the direction might be right, but the market signals were not strong enough at the time, so they wanted to wait for clearer signs before entering the market. Most people were stuck at this stage."

As a result, most of the first batch of investors were existing shareholders of Horizon Robotics, and Wang Huai was the first investor to give an investment commitment to D-Robotics. According to Wang Huai's recollection, Yu Kai called him late one night to talk about Horizon's plan to spin off the robotics business unit. "Ten minutes into the call, I said, since you're the first to ask for my opinion, I'll invest," Wang Huai told China Entrepreneur.

Wang Huai is also one of the earliest investors in Horizon Robotics. Back then, what Horizon initially wanted to do was robotics, so the birth of D-Robotics is more like Yu Kai fulfilling the original entrepreneurial dream he once had. "I fully trust Yu Kai's judgment on this matter," Wang Huai said. In addition, he firmly believes that edge-side chips have great potential in the future.

A week or two after deciding to invest in D-Robotics, Wang Huai met with Wang Cong for a chat — this was the first time he met Wang Cong face to face. Earlier, Yu Kai had told Wang Huai that Wang Cong was a top general with extraordinary execution capabilities, but at that time, Wang Huai was not sure whether Wang Cong could grow from a "general" to a "commander" after D-Robotics became an independent company.

Looking back over the past few years, Wang Huai feels Wang Cong has grown extremely rapidly. He mentioned that AIoT was once the main source of revenue for Horizon Robotics, and after Horizon adjusted its strategy to refocus on automotive business, Wang Cong experienced the full ups and downs of the business. "He is flexible and resilient, trusts the judgment of his leader, supports the strategic adjustments, does his job well, and overfulfills every major task assigned to him," Wang Huai commented.

Apart from execution, Wang Huai also sensed another quality in Wang Cong — a fighting spirit, "Especially that drive to get things done: no matter how hard a task is, he will find a way to make it happen."

At that time, all existing shareholders of Horizon Robotics including Hillhouse Ventures and 5Y Capital followed suit to invest in D-Robotics.

As a new investor, Ninebot Capital made its decision very quickly: Wang Xiao talked to Wang Cong for less than an hour before finalizing the investment. From Wang Xiao's perspective, D-Robotics' logic is very clear: "The biggest storyline is that in the future, there will be two robots per capita, billions of devices will need embodied intelligence capabilities, and each must have computing power adapted to their respective work scenarios. In terms of the team, D-Robotics has been incubated within Horizon Robotics for two to three years, with a solid foundation in chip technology and team collaboration — it's not starting from scratch."

By the third round of financing, the situation had completely changed. D-Robotics' valuation was growing faster and faster, and the core driver behind the skyrocketing valuation was its outstanding performance.

Source: AI-generated

On September 20, 2024, D-Robotics released the Sunrise 5 intelligent computing chip (10 TOPS of computing power) and the RDK X5 developer kit, along with toolchains including the RDK OS operating system. It took only 8 months from the chip's release to mass production. In February 2025, the Sunrise 5 chip was officially launched on Ecovacs' GOAT series lawn mowing robots. In May of the same year, the company announced the completion of its $100 million Series A financing round, with over ten institutions including Hillhouse Ventures, 5Y Capital, and Linear Capital participating.

While capital was pouring in, the product development pace also accelerated. In November 2025, the flagship high-computing-power platform RDK S600 (560 TOPS of computing power), which had been polished for over a year, was released and officially launched in Q1 2026. D-Robotics' client base also expanded rapidly into the embodied intelligence field. As of now, D-Robotics has established partnerships with more than 20 embodied intelligence-related companies, including Stone Robotics, Qianxun Intelligence, Variable Robotics, Zhizai Wujie, UBTECH, Parisense, Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Humanoid Robot (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing. In 2025, D-Robotics' annual shipment volume surged 180% year-on-year, and the number of clients increased 200% year-on-year.

Wang Xiao believes that D-Robotics' business and financing have formed a positive cycle: accelerate business growth after getting financed, then raise more financing after the business scales up. Wang Cong said in an interview with China Entrepreneur in April that the recent several rounds of financing only took about two months on average. His trouble has changed from difficulty in raising money to figuring out how to reject investors who come to him proactively. Starting from the Series B round, they met with 50 to 60 investors and rejected at least 20 to 30 of them.

In April 2026, D-Robotics announced the completion of its $150 million Series B2 financing round, bringing its total accumulated financing to nearly 1.8 billion RMB.

Obsessed with Commercialization

With the financing problem solved, what lay ahead for Wang Cong was the harder nut to crack: "commercialization". In fact, even before the spin-off from Horizon Robotics, he had been fully dedicated to pushing forward commercialization.

For clients, the market was well aware that the company had gone through massive layoffs, so their trust level was almost zero. Wang Cong recalled, "All kinds of negative