China’s embodied intelligence industry has booked two more big-cheque investments—in emerging startups DISCOVER Robotics and PokeBot—amid an ongoing fundraising boom that has already channelled several billions of US dollars into the field in the first six months of 2026.
Less than one month after completing its angel round at over $100 million, DISCOVER Robotics announced this week the successful closing of its $100-million angel+ financing to reach a post-money unicorn valuation of at least $1 billion.
Its angel+ round attracted both financial and strategic investors, including IDG Capital, LinkX Capital, SummitView Capital, Fortune Capital, and Meridian Capital, as well as Chinese small kitchen appliances maker Joyoung and a local state-owned industry investment group. All existing shareholders re-upped in the latest round to help the startup achieve the back-to-back fundraising success.
Founded in 2023 and incubated out of Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR), DISCOVER Robotics specialises in developing consumer-grade embodied intelligence products and software-hardware solutions for commercial services and domestic care.
Its seven-axis robotic arm AIRBOT P7, officially released in July, is powered by built-in 10 TOPS AI computing power capable of handling 10 trillion math calculations per second and an eight-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor.
Founder and chief scientist Dr. Zhou Guyue, who also serves as an associate professor at Tsinghua, holds a Ph.D. from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), where he studied under the renowned robotics and automation expert Prof. Li Zexiang.
Prior to founding DISCOVER Robotics, Dr. Zhou had a near-decade tenure at DJI, the world’s largest drone maker; and spearheaded the firm’s products including the lightweight mini-drone series, DJI Spark.
In the same week, Beijing-headquartered general-purpose embodied intelligence startup PokeBot secured a pre-Series A round worth at least $100 million.
Shunwei Capital and iMPC co-led PokeBot’s pre-A round, with participation from a group of financial and strategic investors such as Ubiquant Partners, Peakvest, SEE Fund, Eastern Bell Capital, and the investment unit of Hong Kong-listed human capital services platform Tongdao Liepin Group. Existing investors including Yunqi Partners and tech giant Xiaomi Corp’s corporate venture arm continued to pour money into this deal.
Founded in late April this year, PokeBot completed a Yunqi Partners-led angel round at “tens of millions of US dollars” upon its inception.
The startup is dedicated to robotic manipulation—the ability of a robot to physically interact with and perform complex tasks in real-world environments. In an online video in June, the company showcased its high-dexterity robotic manipulation solutions by cooking a complete dish of Mapo Tofu from scratch in nine minutes using fully automatic robot arms.
With a shared goal of bringing AI-powered robotics into millions of households, DISCOVER Robotics and PokeBot have joined a growing list of successful fundraisers amid a funding boom in China’s embodied intelligence sector.
A total of 219 deals in the field collectively raised $10.1 billion in H1 2026, according to proprietary data from DealStreetAsia.
The five biggest fundraisers, including AI² Robotics, Spirit AI, TARS, X Square Robot, and Galaxea AI, captured a combined 28.5% of the sector’s funding total. But the broader ecosystem remains vibrant, with the trailing 148 fundraisers sharing 22.1%.
