Chinese professor-turned-founder's Robot Era bags $42m led by Alibaba

Chinese professor-turned-founder's Robot Era bags $42m led by Alibaba

STAR 1, a full-size humanoid robot developed by Chinese embodied intelligence startup Robot Era, conducts a test run in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert in September 2024. Photo from Robot Era

China’s burgeoning deeptech space has seen yet another professor-turned-founder raise funding for his venture. Beijing-based Robot Era, which develops embodied intelligence and general humanoid robots, just raised almost 300 million yuan ($42.2 million) in its Series pre-A round of financing.

Edited by: Joymitra Rai