As capital shifts from evaluating demonstrations to prioritizing mass production and real-world deployment, humanoid robots are reaching a historic inflection point in industrialization. Under the spotlight of the 2025 World Robot Conference, an industrial transformation driven by the synergy of technology and capital is unfolding. Data from the Gaogong Robot Industry Research Institute reveals that the upstream and downstream产业链 of embodied intelligence in China witnessed a total of 144 financing events, with raised amounts reaching 19.5 billion yuan, and an average single financing scale of 135 million yuan. This represents a collective bet by capital on the accelerated commercialization of embodied intelligence. The wave stirred by the resonance of technology and capital is propelling embodied robots from laboratories to stages, retail environments, factories, and households—heralding the commencement of a final battle in a trillion-yuan sector.
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Focus on Mass Production: Capital Enthusiasm Escalates
Han Shenren, CFO of Songyan Power, deeply feels the changes in capital’s attention to embodied intelligence over the past two years. In an interview, Han Shenren recalled that in 2023, the focus was primarily on watching demos and prototype machines; as long as a prototype could move, it relatively easily secured financing. By 2024, investors shifted towards a practicality-oriented logic, and in 2025, more began to concentrate on mass production. “After we achieved mass production capability, financing became increasingly smooth,” he noted. Songyan Power completed three rounds of financing in the first half of this year alone, accumulating to six rounds of financing, receiving intensive support from national industrial funds, top-tier strategic investors, and leading financial institutions. It is reported that Songyan Power secured over 2,000 commercial orders in the first half of the year, with total contract value expected to exceed 100 million yuan. Han Shenren explained that the company focuses on application scenarios in education, scientific research, cultural tourism, and commercial performances. Since achieving mass production capability in June, delivery capacity has continuously improved.
Indeed, the financing pace for enterprises in the embodied intelligence robot sector has noticeably accelerated this year, with multiple companies announcing new rounds of financing, and plans for listings, such as Yushu Technology, being set on the agenda. Third-party data indicates that in the first half of the year, both the frequency and scale of financing in the domestic embodied intelligence field have surpassed the levels of the entire previous year. Simultaneously, the financing amounts for individual projects have risen, with billion-yuan financings becoming commonplace. In the first half, there were over 44 financing rounds exceeding 100 million yuan, including 9 rounds surpassing 500 million yuan. This signifies that capital is beginning to bet on core players “poised to enter industrialization,” with significantly raised screening thresholds.
The financing fervor in the embodied intelligence track extended to the 2025 World Robot Conference venue. On the afternoon of August 10, during an investor roundtable hosted by An Ran, investment partner and创业导师 at Zhiyou Yarui Chuang Platform, Wang Sheng, partner at Innofund, arrived late after concluding another entrepreneurial project exchange. An Ran humorously remarked that at this year’s robot conference, investors are likely busier, meeting with a continuous stream of entrepreneurs. The investment logic for embodied intelligence has evolved alongside technological changes. Ji Haiquan, managing director of Junlian Capital, believes that although disagreements over technical routes persist, the key is to see who can achieve mass production and deployment first. Zhu Fangwen, managing partner of Shoucheng Capital, stated that last year the entire embodied intelligence track was not as heated as it is now; therefore, Shoucheng Capital primarily invested in robot本体 and chain leaders in the embodied intelligence field last year, while this year, the focus shifts upstream to key components and downstream to scenario applications. His assessment is that global shipments of embodied robots will exceed 10,000 units in 2025, with an estimated 5-6 enterprises shipping over 1,000 units each.
Zang Tianyu, partner at Jinqiu Fund, shares a similar judgment. “We estimate that global shipments of embodied robots will be around 10,000 units this year, with more applications in scientific research scenarios. By 2027, it is expected to reach 100,000 units, primarily depending on the progress of embodied intelligence capabilities and when boundaries can be expanded. If progress is rapid, it could quickly escalate to hundreds of thousands or millions of units.”
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Strategic Positioning: Major Companies Fully Commit
When discussing investments in the embodied intelligence field, the substantial moves of internet giants cannot be overlooked. JD.com, which invested in six embodied intelligence companies including Paxini, Zhiyuan Robot, Qianxun Intelligence, and Zhuji Power within just three months, directly secured the position of “Exclusive Global Strategic Partner” for the 2025 World Robot Conference, sharply increasing its presence in the robot track. JD.com’s exhibition booth displayed various forms of intelligent robots, reinforcing the brand perception of “buy robots on JD.com.” Simultaneously, JD.com launched the “Intelligent Robot Industry Acceleration Plan,” announcing that it will invest over 10 billion yuan in resources in the intelligent robot field, aiming to help 100 intelligent robot brands achieve transaction volumes exceeding 1 billion yuan within three years and lead intelligent robots into over 1 million terminal scenarios.
Beyond JD.com, internet behemoths like Tencent, Meituan, ByteDance, and Ant are accelerating their strategic layouts in the embodied intelligence domain. This year, Tencent has invested in at least two embodied intelligence robot companies, Zhiyuan Robot and Yushu Technology, having previously invested in Leju and Ubtech. During the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Tencent introduced the embodied intelligence open platform Tairos, comprising three core model layers and cloud service layers, providing robot manufacturers with modular capabilities including basic models, scene data collection, training simulation, and actual machine deployment. Zhang Zhengyou, chief scientist at Tencent, stated in an interview, “Embodied intelligence itself requires enormous investment. We aim to open up part of our capabilities, such as embodied intelligence software capabilities, into a platformized offering, hoping to accelerate and healthy the entire industry’s development.”
Meituan entered the robot field investment in 2020 and has invested in over 10 robot and embodied intelligence enterprises, including Jiushi, Gaoxian Robot, Pudu Robot, Future Robot, Fancy Technology, Yinhe Tongyong, Tashi Zhihang, Yushu Technology, Zibianliang Robot, and Xinghai Tu. Mao Yinian, vice president of Meituan and chairman of the Meituan Robot Research Institute, expressed that in the future, Meituan will further increase investment intensity, maintaining immediate attention and preliminary screening of global top-tier teams to not miss any excellent startup in the embodied intelligence track. Mao Yinian believes that over the past decades, each key technological breakthrough has brought forth new fields and tracks. The AI wave from 2020 onwards has driven the rapid development of embodied intelligence large models. “Robot commercialization requires simultaneously finding the balance point between cost, efficiency, and generalization capability, producing products that match production and market.” Mao Yinian explained that investing in embodied intelligence companies aligns with Meituan’s local life platform characteristics. Meituan connects three main entities: users, merchants, and delivery capacity; robots and embodied intelligence will help Meituan reconstruct the relationships among these three and create value increments. On the user end, it is anticipated that embodied intelligence will enter millions of households, bringing new service supply methods and becoming new traffic entrances. On the merchant end, introducing embodied intelligence robots in links like sorting and scanning achieves human-robot collaboration, improving manual work environments and efficiency. On the delivery end, from unmanned vehicles to drones, and then to terminal delivery robots, covering the entire process of pickup, sorting, and delivery, optimizing delivery efficiency.
With major companies and various parties showing high investment enthusiasm, undoubtedly, the valuations of embodied intelligence startup enterprises are rising. Zhu Fangwen admitted, “Since last year’s World Robot Conference, the entire track has been extremely hot, with a lot of capital flooding in, and the valuations of many projects have been pushed very high. But from a long-term perspective, if this is a trillion-yuan track, there could be companies with market capitalizations of hundreds of billions or even trillions; it depends on everyone’s confidence. We judge that embodied intelligence robots are in a spiral upward cycle; ultimately, value and price will gradually unify.”
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Industry-Finance Collaboration: Technology and Application in Resonance
Whether major companies or institutions, beyond “providing funds,” they often offer scenarios for technological iteration, aiding rapid technology verification and deployment. Yinhe Tongyong is a typical example. As the largest external shareholder of Yinhe Tongyong, Meituan promoted the entry of Yinhe Tongyong’s wheeled embodied robots into unmanned pharmacies. Mao Yinian said that during a meeting with Wang He, founder of Yinhe Tongyong, they finalized the 24-hour unmanned pharmacy scenario. Subsequently, Mao Yinian connected the需求 to Meituan’s relevant business lines. Mao Yinian stated that deploying robots to “work” in unmanned pharmacies has clear practical needs: if users suddenly fall ill at night and need to buy medicine, what should be done? Someone must retrieve the medicine from the shelves, pack it, and then seal and send out the medication. Inside the pharmacy, tasks like retrieving and packing can be completed by embodied robots. Wang He introduced that Yinhe Tongyong’s wheeled humanoid embodied robots have already “started working” in over 10 unmanned pharmacies in Beijing, and will be promoted to 100 pharmacies in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen within this year, capable of identifying and grasping 5,000 drug SKUs. The embodied robots retrieve drugs based on user order requirements and投入 dedicated packaging machines; delivery riders can retrieve goods from the cabinet by entering a password. Benefiting from a strategy that parallelly advances marketization and product iteration routes, Yinhe Tongyong is highly favored by capital. Wang He stated that in just over two years since its establishment, Yinhe Tongyong has累计 obtained over 2.4 billion yuan in financing, becoming a unicorn with a valuation exceeding $1 billion.
Beyond investment, Li Qingyang, partner at Shoucheng Capital, introduced that Shoucheng Capital has established robot industry companies and financial leasing companies, helping enterprises find scenarios and products find deployment through代理 sales, financing, leasing, and other services. It is reported that Shoucheng Capital is the industrial investment platform under Shoucheng Holdings, managing funds规模超过 30 billion yuan, and is also the main manager of the Beijing Robot Industry Development Fund. Since 2024, it has invested in nearly 20 embodied intelligence robot enterprises, including Yushu Technology and Yinhe Tongyong.
Although the embodied intelligence track is hot, not all startup teams can smoothly secure financing. Wang Sheng told reporters that currently, funds mainly flow to head star companies, while teams below the waist find financing not easy. He advised entrepreneurs that in the current context where the downstream market for embodied intelligence is not fully mature, first, they must have very strong financing capabilities, as financing capability remains the biggest test in the coming years; second, while technology has not fully converged, they should appropriately retain funds to avoid running further in the wrong direction; third, the team itself must be flexible, able to grasp constantly changing industrial needs and opportunities.
Ma Lin, managing partner of Infinite Fund SEE Fund, believes that when embodied intelligence enterprises focus on deployment scenarios, they should not use “replacing humans” as the logic but should concentrate on “superhuman scenarios,” i.e., things humans cannot do or are unwilling to do, as well as fields satisfying human emotional needs, such as hazardous scenario operations, education companionship, etc. Additionally, he reminded startups to avoid follow-the-leader innovation and should seek全新 fields for horizontal expansion, rather than competing with giants in existing tracks. Like many others, Ma Lin feels excited to catch such a wave: “We see a group of people—investors, entrepreneurs, researchers—everyone harbors the dream of bringing AI capabilities from virtual space to the physical world, hoping to jointly合力 make technology truly benefit society and humanity.” He believes that the Chinese market provides a favorable “cultivation dish” for the embodied intelligence industry, possessing supply chain and talent advantages, while vast manufacturing and service industries also offer deployment scenarios for embodied intelligence applications. “We believe that ultimately, many great robot companies will emerge in China,” Ma Lin said.