Shenzhen-based Leju Robotics has raised nearly 1.5 billion yuan ($210.5 million) in its pre-IPO financing amid the exponential funding growth in China’s humanoid robot industry in 2025.
Leju, which counts Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings and the state-owned Shenzhen Capital Group among its early investors, roped in CITIC Goldstone and state-backed Shenzhen Investment Holdings in the pre-IPO financing, the company said in a statement on Wednesday (Oct. 23).
Its pre-IPO investors also included mainland China-listed packaging equipment supplier Dongfang Precision Science & Technology and auto parts manufacturer Tuopu Group. Investment firms such as the China-US Green Fund, Daohe Long-Term Investment, New Alliance Capital, and Probing VC, to name a few, also participated.
Founded in 2016, Leju currently partners with around 40 companies, including Tencent, Huawei Technologies, Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing subsidiary of Alibaba Group, telecom giants China Mobile and China Telecom, automaker FAW Group, and home appliances maker Haier Group to explore potential use cases of its humanoid robots. Their focused areas for applications include scientific research, business support services, as well as industrial and domestic use.
While the pre-IPO financing will see it move closer to a public listing, Leju plans to invest the fresh capital in strengthening its R&D of core technologies, exploring new use cases, and promoting the mass production and wider adoption of humanoid robots, it said.
Moreover, Leju said it would “deepen presence” in the humanoid robot supply chain, where it has already invested in a handful of smaller startups such as robot joints developer Motorevo and robot data management platform coScene.
Fundraising by humanoid robot companies in China has grown exponentially this year to surpass 12.1 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) in the first seven months. Their fundraising total in the January-July period was more than double the 5.5 billion yuan ($771.8 million) raised throughout 2024.
With the completion of 88 deals, the number of investments in Chinese humanoid robot companies in 7M 2025 was nearly 39.7% more than last year, according to an October industry report by market researcher EO Intelligence.
Among the country’s biggest fundraisers in the humanoid robot sector is Unitree Technology, which said last month it would go public as soon as October.
