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RobotEra (星动纪元), a global leader in embodied AI robotics, has announced the completion of a 1 billion yuan strategic funding round. The investment was jointly made by domestic and international industrial capital and financial investors, with Gaocheng Capital participating as a core investor.
This round reflects strong capital market confidence in RobotEra’s technological capabilities and commercialization path. It also provides a powerful boost to what is currently China’s only embodied intelligence company with full-stack self-developed capabilities spanning the “brain,” motion control, body, and dexterous hands. The funds will primarily go toward frontier R&D, scaled production, and expansion into diversified commercial scenarios.
Full-Stack Self-Development as a Competitive Moat
As the only embodied intelligence company in which Tsinghua University holds equity, RobotEra leverages top academic resources to achieve full-stack self-development — from “cerebrum” and “cerebellum” to “body” and “dexterous hands” — building a formidable “software-hardware integrated” technology barrier.
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“Cerebrum” Breakthrough: RobotEra’s proprietary end-to-end embodied large model ERA-42 continues to lead innovation in VLA (Vision-Language-Action) model and world model training and application. In the VLA domain, RobotEra pioneered multiple global firsts, including multi-frequency VLA and “VLA + online reinforcement learning” paradigms, publishing these results ahead of Physical Intelligence, Google, and NVIDIA. Its reinforcement learning approach was even cited by PI’s latest model, π0.6. In world models, the team achieved a breakthrough in collaboration with Stanford’s Chelsea Finn (co-founder of Physical Intelligence), with their Ctrl-World model topping the global WorldArena benchmark in February 2026 — first in embodied tasks, second overall in video generation. In the same month, the team proposed the VLAW architecture in collaboration with Stanford, achieving co-evolution of VLA and world models for the first time, solving key challenges around physical fidelity and practical application adaptability.
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“Body” Innovation: RobotEra has self-developed core components including motors, reducers, actuators, and five-fingered dexterous hands, achieving high-dynamic motion control for a full-sized bipedal humanoid robot with 55 degrees of freedom. The robot boasts exceptional joint flexibility, enabling human-like whole-body coordination for highly dynamic movements.
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“Dexterous Hand” Mass Production: Pioneering an all-direct-drive technology architecture, its five-fingered dexterous hand — the XHAND1 — has shipped nearly 1,000 units as of 2025, earning global customer recognition.
Industrial Capital Backing and Accelerating Commercialization
Since its founding, RobotEra has attracted 16 domestic and international industrial investors, including Geely Capital, Alibaba, Lenovo, Haier, BAIC, Century Golden Resources, and international giants such as one of the world’s largest industrial conglomerates and Singtel. This “international giant + domestic leader” ecosystem matrix provides not only capital but also technology validation, scenario expansion, supply chain synergies, and channel development — building a competitive moat.
Leveraging its full-stack self-developed advantage and broad industrial investor support, RobotEra’s commercialization is advancing rapidly, with high-quality, high-repurchase revenue already flowing in. Cumulative orders have surpassed 500 million yuan, with overseas business accounting for 50%, covering core markets in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Japan, and South Korea. The client roster includes 9 of the world’s top 10 technology companies by market capitalization, alongside Samsung, Geely, Renault, SF Express, Haier, TCL, and other industry leaders, with some clients placing up to six repeat orders.
Near-Term Focus: Logistics, Then Everything Else
Logistics is where RobotEra has first achieved scaled deployment. The company’s largest single order exceeds 50 million yuan, reflecting strong industry demand. Its embodied AI logistics solutions are already deployed in warehouse picking and express delivery sorting, with operations live in logistics hubs across five cities: Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Hefei, and Huzhou. In certain scenarios, efficiency has reached 70% of human performance.
The company has also forged a deep partnership with SF Express, launching the world’s first embodied AI inspection solution for cross-border logistics, now officially operational in customs environments.
Plans call for continued expansion in logistics scenarios, with a focus on e-commerce, industrial manufacturing, and pharmaceutical distribution across inbound logistics, in-plant logistics, sales logistics, after-sales logistics, and express delivery extensions — forming a full-chain, multi-domain embodied logistics service system.
The embodied intelligence industry is rapidly shifting from “moving on stage” to “working in factories,” becoming a new engine of economic growth. This latest funding round marks a new starting point for RobotEra’s accelerated upgrade across technology, products, and commercialization. The company will continue to drive innovation, consolidate its industry leadership, and push embodied AI technology into every corner of industry — building universal intelligent agents for the physical world and powering the global industrial intelligence upgrade.
Gaocheng Capital’s Perspective
Gaocheng Capital has been a long-term believer in the “Physical AI” track represented by RobotEra, viewing the intersection of “industrial-grade hardware innovation × agentic intelligence” as a structural long-term opportunity. In recent years, Gaocheng has also led investments in autonomous driving software leader Momenta, L4 logistics autonomous vehicle company Neolix, L4 mining autonomous vehicle company EQ Zhijia, laser maker equipment company xTool, smart fitness company Sujing, and autonomous driving chip company XinXin — all “Physical AI” leaders combining hardware and software.
RobotEra’s frontier technology, depth of industry integration, and speed of commercialization are all deeply impressive. The firm is confident that RobotEra will continue to consolidate its industry leadership, push embodied intelligence technology into every sector, and ultimately become a core force driving the global industrial intelligence upgrade.
