Star Sea Map, Tashizhihang, Star Era... Embodied AI financing enthusiasm reignites, with CATL and Meituan continuing to seize the beachhead.

Embodied intelligence investment enthusiasm continues to ferment.

According to the Daily Economic News, as of June 23, there have been a total of 91 investment events in the embodied intelligence industry in China this year, surpassing the 77 events for the entire year of 2024, with a total investment amount reaching 11.037 billion yuan.

Among them, Unitree Robotics completed nearly 700 million yuan in Series C financing, and Galaxy General Robotics completed a new round of financing of 1.1 billion yuan led by CATL on June 23, setting the largest single financing record in the embodied large model robot field and simultaneously refreshing the highest cumulative financing record in the field. Clearly, the positive sentiment of the capital side is extremely high.

Following this, entering July, recently, several embodied intelligence startups such as Xinghai Tu, TARS, Xingdong Jiyuan, and Yunshenchu Technology have successively completed new rounds of financing, with well-known investors including Today Capital, Meituan Dragon Ball, Mihayou, CDH VGC, and Haier Capital.

It is reported that in less than half a month (as of July 3, 2025), the number of investment events in the industry this year has further increased to 114.

The new battlefield for Ning Wang and Tencent: Embodied intelligence has long become a "hot commodity"

As an emerging technology track that integrates the essence of future technology, the industry prospects of embodied intelligence are undoubtedly very certain, theoretically surpassing smart cars in the future; more importantly, it has extremely high national strategic significance.

On March 5 this year, embodied intelligence appeared for the first time in the government work report, listing it alongside 6G, quantum technology, and bio-manufacturing as future industries.

According to Statista's latest estimate, the global AI robot market size will exceed 19 billion USD in 2024, an increase of nearly 30% compared to the market size in 2023, and is expected to exceed 35 billion USD by 2030.

Citi predicts that by 2050, the global humanoid robot market size will grow to 7 trillion USD, with nearly 650 million humanoid robots worldwide, and Morgan Stanley further predicts its potential market size will reach 60 trillion USD.

Of course, so far, the embodied intelligence industry as a whole is in the early introduction stage of the industry. In the domestic market, with representative companies such as Unitree Robotics and Zhiyuan Robotics gradually moving from laboratory research to industry and scenarios, the industry is generally in the stage of small-scale pilot landings in scenarios.

Therefore, as a future technology industry that is breaking through from 0 to 1, with high technical intensity, cutting-edge direction, and large capital investment, embodied intelligence has a very high capital threshold.

In this context, leading capital has become the dominant force in the industry. According to incomplete statistics, top VC/PE institutions such as Hillhouse Ventures, Qiming Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, along with strategic investment departments of internet giants such as JD.com, Tencent, Meituan Dragon Ball, and Ant Group, as well as industrial capital such as CATL, Lenovo, TCL Ventures, and Haier Capital, are frequently appearing in the embodied intelligence investment track.

This is vividly reflected in the latest round of financing completed by the aforementioned startups.

Public information shows that the new round of financing completed by Unitree Robotics in June was jointly led by China Mobile's fund, Tencent, Jinqiu Fund, Alibaba, Ant Group, and Geely Capital, with a post-investment valuation exceeding 12 billion yuan.

The 1.1 billion large financing of Galaxy General was led by CATL and gathered investors such as CATL Capital, National Development Bank's National Development Science and Technology Innovation, Beijing Robotics Industry Fund, and GGV Capital.

The nearly 500 million yuan Series A financing completed by the Tsinghua-affiliated embodied intelligence company Xingdong Jiyuan was jointly led by CDH VGC and Haier Capital, with follow-up investments from well-known financial institutions and industrial capital such as Houxue Capital, Huaying Capital, Xianghe Capital, and Fengli Intelligence, and continued additional investments from existing shareholders such as Qingliu Capital and Qingke Fund.

In addition, Xinghai Tu completed consecutive A4 and A5 strategic financing rounds, with the former round jointly led by Today Capital and Meituan Dragon Ball, and follow-up investments from CICC Porsche Fund, Xianghe Capital, and existing shareholders such as Mihayou and Wuxi Venture Group; the latter round was jointly led by Meituan Dragon Ball and Meituan Strategic Investment, with Beijing Robotics Fund over-investing, Yizhuang National Investment following up, and continued follow-up investments from existing shareholders such as IDG Capital, BV Baidu Ventures, Cathay Capital, Today Capital, and Xianghe Capital.

The 122 million USD angel + round financing completed by TARS, which was founded less than half a year ago, was also led by Meituan Strategic Investment, with follow-up investments from Junshan Investment, Bihong Investment, Guoqi Investment, Lingang Science and Technology Investment, SAIF Investment Fund, and Xiamen Emerging Investment, and continued additional investments from existing shareholders such as Linear Capital and Xianghe Capital.

Yunshenchu, one of the "Six Little Dragons of Hangzhou," completed a new round of financing of nearly 500 million yuan, jointly led by Dacheng Finance and Guoxin Fund, with follow-up investments from institutions such as Beijing Robotics Industry Development Investment Fund, Qianhai Mother Fund, CCTV Media Fund, Fujian Fund, Huaying Capital, and Wuchan Zhongda Investment.

Local fund support also directly verifies the extremely important strategic significance of this track.

Industry investors said that despite the financing scale of these top projects exceeding the original quota by several times, they are still very popular, and many institutions want to invest but cannot get in.

The founding team is either from Tsinghua or Ivy League, the "Huangpu Military Academy" of the robotics world!

At this time, for embodied intelligence startups, a strong scientific research and technology team or a senior team in related industries such as AI is the best endorsement for obtaining the necessary investment funds more quickly and efficiently.

TARS is the latest new player among the aforementioned companies, founded on February 5, 2025, and announced the completion of a 120 million USD angel round financing on March 26, setting a new record for the largest angel round in China's embodied intelligence industry.

From the perspective of team strength, the founding team of TARS comes from Huawei, Baidu, and DJI, with CEO Dr. Chen Yilun having served as the chief scientist in the intelligent robotics direction at Tsinghua University's Institute of Intelligent Industry, Huawei's autonomous driving CTO, and DJI's machine vision chief engineer.

This means that its core team is well-versed in internet thinking, and its core leading figures have extremely strong technical backgrounds.

This may be one of the core reasons why TARS successfully gained the favor of Meituan Strategic Investment this time.

In fact, Meituan CEO Wang Xing revealed in the 2020 annual financial report conference call, "The development of Meituan's business requires not only software but also hardware, and robots are currently one of the key vertical fields for Meituan's investment."

This also explains why Meituan frequently appears in the robot investment track.

Similarly favored by Meituan's investment funds is Xinghai Tu, which recently led two rounds of financing for this startup.

Founded in September 2023, Xinghai Tu is an artificial intelligence company focused on creating "one brain, multiple forms" embodied intelligent robots. Xinghai Tu believes that embodied intelligence should be centered around the intelligent boundary of the intelligent body, rather than starting from the hardware of the body itself.

Its core team brings together international top AI perception and motion control technology experts, AI product implementers with practical experience, and hardware and system engineers with rich mass production experience.

Among the four founding members, Gao Jiyang, Zhao Xing, and Xu Huazhe are all from Tsinghua University, while Li Tianwei is a master's graduate from UCL. With a strong team endorsement, Xinghai Tu received two rounds of angel financing totaling tens of millions of USD in its first year of establishment, with top investors such as IDG Capital, BV Baidu Ventures, Infinite Fund SEEFUND, GSR Ventures, and Qixi Investment highly optimistic about this team composed of post-90s.

Looking at the short-term achievements, Xinghai Tu has not disappointed the recognition of well-known investors. In terms of development path, Xinghai Tu uses deployable intelligent body products as the entry point, gradually building a real commercial loop and data loop. Currently, Xinghai Tu has achieved full-stack self-research from embodied body, end-to-end algorithms, and scenario landing solutions, and has developed two products: the vector control chassis X1 and the collimated drive motor ultra-light mechanical arm product A1, and proposed the world's first robot Real2Sim2Real engine, jointly launching a humanoid five-finger dexterous hand + high dynamic force control mechanical arm overall solution with Yinshi Robotics.

As the only embodied intelligence company held by Tsinghua University, Xingdong Jiyuan's technical background is undoubtedly unquestionable.

Public information shows that Xingdong Jiyuan's founder and CEO Chen Jianyu graduated from Tsinghua University and obtained a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and has published more than seventy papers in international top conferences and journals in the fields of robotics and AI. He is currently also a PI at the Shanghai Institute of Advanced Studies and an assistant professor at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at Tsinghua University.

What investors love even more is that Xingdong Jiyuan has shown signs of breaking through industrial scene commerce. From its establishment, it has adhered to the technology route of software and hardware integration, committed to creating a general intelligent body in the physical world, and has achieved this to some extent, completing the business layout from research - industry - service.

In the industrial field, it has joined hands with Beizi Technology to build a new logistics trillion-dollar industry ecosystem, and the full-size humanoid robot Xingdong STAR1 has been trained in tasks such as handling, sorting, and scanning in factories. In the service field, it has joined hands with Haier Smart Home, Lenovo, Century Golden Source, etc., to reconstruct the retail service experience; the wheeled service humanoid robot Xingdong Q5 is being trained to provide personalized services such as reception, guidance, explanation, talent performance, and carrying bags for customers.

On the client side, among the top 10 technology giants in the world by market value, 9 are Xingdong Jiyuan's customers; as of June, more than 200 products have been delivered this year, with hundreds of orders in mass production delivery; currently, more than 50% of all orders come from overseas customers. Its customers also include MIT, Stanford, UCBerkeley, ByteDance Robotics Lab, etc.

This time, Haier Capital's participation in the joint lead investment is a strong recognition of its technology and industry strength.

Yunshenchu's technology and industry progress, which is strongly supported by local funds, is also very rapid. Led by Zhu Qiuguo, associate professor and doctoral supervisor at Zhejiang University and founder and CEO of Yunshenchu Technology, Yunshenchu released the Bobcat M20 in April this year - the world's first industry application wheeled-foot robot designed for complex terrain and dangerous environments.

Zhu Qiuguo said, "The successful completion of this round of financing marks the company's development entering a new stage of large-scale mass production."

The relevant investment department head of Guoxin Fund said, "We highly recognize Yunshenchu Technology's accumulation in scenario applications, central state-owned enterprise cooperation, and full-stack self-research. This investment is in response to the 'new quality productivity' strategy, focusing on important layouts in embodied intelligence and AI applications."

As for Galaxy General led by CATL, and Unitree Robotics, which gained recognition from well-known big factories such as Alibaba, Ant, Geely, and China Mobile after shining on the Spring Festival Gala, the technical background of both companies is obviously only stronger.

Using small commercial successes to break the bubble theory: The future will become a bigger track than smart cars

It is undeniable that behind the capital's frenzied pursuit, there are also some hidden concerns.

On the one hand, the investment threshold for embodied intelligence projects has been raised to a new high, with financing scales of billions of yuan at the startup stage, excluding many small and medium-sized investment institutions; on the other hand, although current investment and concepts are very hot, whether successful and sustainable growth commercial cases can truly emerge in the future is still full of uncertainty.

Based on these uncertainties, the industry has even begun to question whether the current investment heat in the embodied intelligence and robotics field is significantly warming, with more pronounced market bubble characteristics.

However, Xingdong Jiyuan's founder and CEO Chen Jianyu holds a different view. He recently stated that the embodied intelligence industry has not even appeared so-called "bubble" yet. Moreover, the embodied intelligence field will form an industry ecosystem similar to smart cars, referring to the current smart car industry chain, the future robot industry will also have professional divisions - there will be mainframe factories focusing on hardware integration, "brain" suppliers deep in AI algorithms, and of course comprehensive enterprises with full-stack capabilities.

"Embodied intelligence is AI in the physical sense, its market potential is huge, and it should be larger in scale than smart cars and large language model fields. But currently, the financing level of embodied intelligence is far lower than that of leading smart car companies."

What particularly boosts the confidence of relevant investors is that a few AI robot players are beginning to release commercial capabilities, such as Xingdong Jiyuan, which has delivered more than 200 products cumulatively, with hundreds of orders in mass production delivery.

It is reported that Unitree Robotics' Wang Xingxing once revealed that the company's annual revenue has exceeded 1 billion yuan, and investors said it has maintained profitability for five consecutive years;

In addition, Galaxy General is testing smart retail, industrial manufacturing, elderly care, and medical scenarios, planning to enter 100 unmanned retail stores in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen within 2025; in the industrial field, it cooperates with automotive industry giants such as Mercedes-Benz, ZEEKR, Hyundai, and Bosch;

Yunshenchu stated that it has become the first in the track in B-end application fields such as power inspection and emergency rescue, and the company's financing director Chen Zhenhao recently stated that the company's shipment volume in 2025 is much higher than in previous years, reaching several thousand units and achieving profitability, with a B-end market expected to have a market space of hundreds of billions.

The commercialization of the industry is still on the "Long March," but Chinese embodied intelligence companies have already embarked on a path of scenario-driven development, achieving a three-level jump in scenario breakthroughs, starting from the research market, moving into industrial scenarios, and then accelerating penetration into consumer service scenarios.