A humanoid-robot company worth a few billion yuan in 2024 was valued several times higher a year later.
Across China, money flowing into walking, grasping machines moved from cautious seed checks to nine-figure rounds in a matter of months.
The investors now writing the checks include a phone carrier, a battery giant, and sovereign funds from the Middle East.
Key takeaways
- Three Chinese embodied-intelligence (具身智能) startups — Unitree (宇树科技), Galbot (银河通用), and AgiBot (智元机器人) — closed major 2024–2025 funding rounds, with Galbot's December 2025 round the largest at over US$300M.
- Unitree's June 2025 C round carried a post-money valuation of about RMB 12.7 billion (≈ US$1.79B), according to its IPO prospectus.
- Galbot reached a US$3.0B (≈ RMB 21.1B) valuation after that round, briefly the highest among Chinese humanoid (人形机器人) and embodied-AI startups.
- AgiBot's exact per-round amounts differ across trackers, but it reached unicorn status in 2023 and in 2025 took control of a listed shell company, Shanghai Premium (上纬新材).
Unitree: from quadruped darling to a ~US$1.8B round
Unitree (宇树科技), founded in Hangzhou in 2016 by Wang Xingxing (王兴兴), built its name on quadruped (四足机器人) robots like the Go1 and B1 before moving into humanoids. Its financing accelerated sharply. Per its IPO prospectus, the company closed a B3 round in September 2024 at a post-money valuation of about RMB 3.785 billion (≈ US$533M).
The jump came in June 2025 with a C round. Unitree raised roughly RMB 694 million (≈ US$98M) at a pre-money valuation of about RMB 12.0 billion (≈ US$1.69B) and a post-money value near RMB 12.7 billion (≈ US$1.79B). The investor roster read like a who's-who of Chinese strategic capital: China Mobile (中国移动), Tencent (腾讯), Alibaba (阿里巴巴), Ant Group (蚂蚁集团), and Geely (吉利), with most existing shareholders following on. That round lifted Unitree from a sub-RMB 4 billion paper value in late 2024 to near RMB 12.7 billion in mid-2025 — a roughly 3.3x step-up in under a year.
Galbot: the US$300M round that reset the bar
Galbot (银河通用), founded in Beijing in May 2023 by Wang He (王鹤), a Stanford-trained robotics researcher and Peking University professor, ran one of the fastest funding climbs in the field. Its documented path:
- June 2024: an angel round of about RMB 700 million (≈ US$99M), then the largest early-stage check in China's embodied-AI space that year, with Meituan (美团) and BAIC (北汽) among backers.
- November 2024: a strategic round of about RMB 500 million (≈ US$70M), adding SAIC (上汽), Hong Kong's HKIC, and Shenzhen Capital.
- June 2025: a round of more than RMB 1.1 billion (≈ US$155M) led by CATL (宁德时代, Contemporary Amperex Technology), the battery giant — notable because Galbot became the only embodied-AI startup known to have CATL as an investor.
- December 2025: a round of more than US$300M, led by China Mobile's industry-chain fund, with CICC Capital, a CAS fund, and Middle Eastern investors participating. It pushed Galbot's valuation to about US$3.0 billion (≈ RMB 21.1B) and lifted cumulative funding to more than US$600M.
That December round was, by multiple Chinese financial-news accounts, the largest single funding event in China's humanoid and embodied-AI sector to that point, and it made Galbot's paper value briefly the highest among the country's humanoid contenders — above AgiBot's reported RMB 15 billion and Unitree's ~RMB 12.7 billion at the time.
AgiBot: unicorn speed and a public-market detour
AgiBot (智元机器人), also known as Zhiyuan Robotics, was founded in Shanghai in February 2023 by Peng Zhihui (彭志辉, a well-known former Huawei engineer) and Deng Taihua (邓泰华). It reached unicorn status within its first year — a pace that drew Tencent (腾讯), Hillhouse (高瓴), BYD (比亚迪), HongShan (红杉), JD.com, SAIC, LG Electronics, and Mirae Asset as backers across more than ten rounds.
On the size of those rounds, caution is warranted: published trackers disagree on exact per-round amounts and valuations, so the safest statement is that AgiBot had raised more than RMB 3 billion (≈ US$420M) across its rounds by late 2025, with valuation figures ranging widely depending on the source. We report that range rather than a single precise number.
What is less ambiguous is AgiBot's capital-markets maneuver. In 2025 it took control of Shanghai Premium (上纬新材), a company already listed on the STAR Market (科创板), through a negotiated transfer and tender offer — a reverse takeover that gives the robotics firm a public-company platform without a fresh IPO process. For a funding-story observatory, that is as significant as any venture round: it shows a path from private capital to a listed shell when a standard IPO is slower or uncertain.
What the rounds tell us about who is writing the checks
A clear pattern runs through all three. The lead investors are no longer only venture funds; they are strategics with operating reasons to own robotics capacity. CATL wants robots for battery-plant automation. China Mobile wants them for 5G/6G-enabled remote operation. Meituan eyes last-mile and warehouse labor. When a strategic leads, the round usually signals a commercial partnership, not just a bet on upside.
According to Li An, chief scientist at BrainNet (脑机网), the shift from venture-led to strategic-led robotics financing means today's rounds are less about demo videos and more about which industrial partner will be the first large-scale customer.
Honest limitations
- Funding-round figures for private companies are often disclosed selectively, and AgiBot's per-round amounts and valuations differ across trackers; we therefore present it as a range rather than a precise number.
- Valuations cited are paper, pre-IPO figures set in negotiations, not market-tested prices; they can fall as easily as rise.
- We did not independently verify unit economics or shipment volumes; commercial scale for humanoid (人形机器人) products remains early despite the capital inflow.
- Sources are Chinese financial media and company disclosures (including Unitree's prospectus), not audited filings for the private rounds, and exchange rates are approximate (≈ RMB 7.1 = US$1).
What readers can do now
- Separate "raised" from "valuation": Galbot's >US$300M round at a US$3.0B valuation means new money was a fraction of paper worth — track cumulative capital raised, not the headline valuation.
- Watch the investor mix: when industrial strategics (CATL, China Mobile, Meituan) lead a round, it usually flags a commercial partnership and a likely first large customer, not just capital.
- For pre-IPO names, check whether the company has filed or done a reverse takeover (as AgiBot did with Shanghai Premium); that signals a near-term public-market path worth tracking.