GalaxyBot, an embodied artificial intelligence (AI) startup in China, has closed an angel round worth 700 million yuan ($96.4 million) just 12 months after its inception.
The value of GalaxyBot’s angel round is unusually high even by the standards of China’s multi-trillion-dollar private market, which is second only to the US in size.
Beijing-based GalaxyBot, also known as Galbot, raised the financing from both financial and strategic investors, according to a post on Friday on the official WeChat account of Lighthouse Capital, the exclusive financial advisor of the deal. Lighthouse Capital is also an early investor in GalaxyBot. The investment arms of Chinese local life service app Meituan, Hong Kong-listed AI company SenseTime Group, the state-owned automaker Beijing Automotive Group, and voice recognition software provider iFlytek invested in the round, according to the post.
A group of blue-chip venture capital (VC) firms including Qiming Venture Partners, Lanchi Ventures, Matrix Partners China, Source Code Capital, and IDG Capital participated in the investment. Lanchi Ventures, previously known as BlueRun Ventures China, changed its English name in September 2023 to stress its independent operations from PayPal backer BlueRun Ventures (BRV) in the US.
The success of the angel round is partially attributable to the rise of generative AI, which is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 36.6% from 2024-29 to reach $94.8 billion, according to a Research and Markets report in May. The popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and an influx of investments by tech giants, such as Google and Microsoft in the US to Alibaba and Tencent in China, have sparked the imagination of entrepreneurs and investors in the embodied AI space.
GalaxyBot was founded in May 2023 by Wang He, an assistant professor at China’s prestigious Peking University, where he leads the Embodied Perception and InteraCtion (EPIC) Lab with his research specialty spanning 3D vision, robotics, and machine learning.
Embodied AI refers to the integration of machine learning, computer vision, robot learning and language technologies in the “embodiment” of artificial intelligence: robots that can perceive, act, and collaborate. First extensively explored in the early 90s in a research paper by Australian roboticist and MIT professor Rodney Brooks, the concept was then considered radical, until OpenAI’s rise to fame boosted confidence in the commercialisation potential of new-generation robots equipped with this much more powerful AI.
During an industry conference in Beijing earlier this month, GalaxyBot showcased its first generalisable embodied AI robot model G1, which is powered by robotic grasping capabilities and 3D visual navigation. Its G1 robot model can handle tasks such as folding its leg to grasp objects on the floor; pouring water from one glass to another; as well as picking up randomly-shaped transparent glass fragments.
While it is still at the initial stage of applying embodied AI algorithms in hardware, GalaxyBot is already making progress on product prototypes and field tests. The startup is expected to commercialise its self-developed embodied AI robots, with a focus on consumer-side applications, within this year.
Besides retail, GalaxyBot is also exploring commercialisation opportunities across areas like logistics, education, and other potential industrial use cases, said Wang in the post. “In the future, we will further research into the potential [of embodied AI] in providing community services for the elderly, domestic care, and more,” he said.
Driven by the accelerated growth of Chinese generative AI unicorns like Baichuan AI, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax, robotics is one of the few industries where private-market investments remain active despite overall fundraising challenges. Privately-held robotics companies in China raised a combined 24 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) in 2023, according to statistics from Chinese data provider IT Juzi.
