Shenzhen-based humanoid robotics startup Astribot has closed a new financing round of RMB 1 billion (about $149.4 million) at a valuation of RMB 15 billion (about $2.1 billion), the company announced on October 13. The round was led by Shenzhen Investment Holdings-linked capital, with participation from Hongtai Fund, the Ninghai Xingtaihe Fund managed by Guanghua Sunshine, Shanheng Capital, and returning investor Xianmu, which followed on from earlier rounds.
The deal marks Astribot's fourth financing round in roughly six months. Since March, it has completed A+, A++, and Series B rounds — its Series B in June raised more than RMB 1 billion and pushed its valuation past RMB 10 billion for the first time. Its last two rounds alone total more than RMB 2 billion, and valuation has risen RMB 5 billion in three months — an unusually rapid pace even in China's white-hot embodied AI sector.
Astribot, also known as Stardust Intelligence, builds humanoid robots around a distinctive bet: cable-driven actuation. Instead of conventional rigid joints, its robots transmit force through cables, which the company says enables more compliant, natural movement and safer interaction.
One company, model to motor
The company's pitch to investors is a full-stack architecture it describes as "AI model, embodied operating system, cable-driven body." Astribot develops its Lumo embodied base model, its AstribotOS robot operating system, and its cable-driven robot bodies in-house, arguing that designing hardware and intelligence together produces robots that learn and improve through real-world deployment. "The robots are designed around what AI can do in the physical world, not the other way around," founder and CEO Lai Jie has said, summarizing the company's "Design for AI" philosophy. The low-inertia, force-sensitive nature of cable-driven limbs also helps the company collect the multimodal physical interaction data — vision, motion, force, and joint feedback — that its models train on.
The new capital will fund model iteration, talent expansion, commercialization, and manufacturing capacity. Astribot says it is the world's first company to mass-produce cable-driven AI robots, and its backers point to manufacturing capacity in the tens of thousands of units and orders for thousands of robots across its S-series and T-series products, which target commercial services, research, education, and eventually household use.
State capital enters the picture
The round's investor roster carries a signal beyond the money. Shenzhen Investment Holdings, a major state-owned enterprise, leading the round underscores how Chinese local governments are treating manufacturable embodied AI as strategic industrial infrastructure — backing companies that can demonstrate real production and deployment, not just laboratory demos. Astribot's shareholder base now mixes state funds, industrial investors, and established venture firms including Ant Group, Yunqi Partners, and Matrix Partners China from earlier rounds. The T1, its lower-cost cable-driven humanoid priced from 89,900 yuan (about $12,600), was recently showcased to North America for the first time at IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh — a sign of commercial ambitions beyond China.
China's robotics gold rush accelerates
The round lands amid an unprecedented funding wave for Chinese robotics. Chinese robotics startups raised roughly $5.6 billion across 176 deals by mid-May 2026, already exceeding the total raised in all of 2025, according to industry tracking — with investors increasingly favoring companies that can show manufacturing scale and real order books. Valuations are climbing accordingly, and with them expectations. Astribot's challenge is the same one facing every well-funded robotics startup: converting a record fundraising pace and a distinctive hardware design into sustained shipments, reliable products, and profitable operations. The next test will be delivery — not demos.
By Hamza Faisal
