Growth-stage robot startups now face fewer leads, longer fundraising and secondhand-share discounts of 20% to 35%, so revenue from real orders will decide which ones reach an IPO.
Chinese investors are pulling money out of embodied AI, the label for robots and other machines that run on AI models, after a rush of deals in the first half of the year. Data from IT Juzi, cited by Daily Economic News, show 33 financings worth RMB10.105 billion in October, down from 60 deals worth RMB11.028 billion in September and 55 worth RMB30.892 billion at June’s peak. The October figure covers the month to date.
Reports from three Chinese business outlets this week describe the same turn from different angles: fund managers moving to earlier deals, financial advisers turning away robot startups, and early shareholders selling stakes below the price of the last round.
The shift matters because many leading companies were priced on the assumption that a stock-market listing would follow quickly. That route is narrowing at the same time.
Advisers report half as many deals and sales stalling for months
A leading financial adviser told 36Kr, in an article republished by NetEase, that the number of embodied-AI projects reaching his firm had fallen by about half. Deals that once closed within a month have stalled, and he expects them to take three to six months. A Shenzhen founder who had been raising money normally until September was told within two weeks that his adviser no longer took embodied-AI projects. According to NE Times data cited in the same report, embodied-AI funding in September fell about 40% from August.
Secondhand shares are changing hands at a discount. Early shareholders in leading embodied-AI companies have been selling stakes at 65% to 80% of the valuation set in the most recent round. The 21st Century Business Herald, which reported the discounts, said most sellers are early backers, some of them because their funds are reaching the end of their terms, and that buyers are scarce. Funding is also clustering at the earliest and latest stages, with middle rounds delayed and few investors willing to lead them; some companies have raised four or five rounds without reaching a Series A. Zhang Jiakang, founder of Gengxin Capital, told the paper that "整个赛道的投融资量下降了大概50%" (financing volume across the sector has fallen by about half). That cooling follows a first half in which iiMedia Research counted 172 deals worth RMB109.174 billion, with several companies, including AGIBOT and Galbot, valued at RMB20 billion or more.
Unitree’s slide and a tighter IPO window changed the arithmetic
Investors point to the public market. Unitree Robotics, the sector’s best-known listed company, hit RMB1,100 on its first trading day in August and later fell more than 60% at the deepest point before recovering to about RMB720, 36Kr reported. Cao Wei, a partner at BlueRun Ventures, told Daily Economic News that the slide was "很痛" (very painful). Unitree’s founder Wang Xingxing has added to the doubts by saying that future large models may "击穿" (break through) physical AI, a point he has raised before and one that leaves investors asking whether startups’ own robot-control models will keep their value.
The listing route has also narrowed. The China Securities Regulatory Commission publishes about 10 Hong Kong listing filings a month, against a Hong Kong queue that Daily Economic News put at at least 600 companies, and reviews now weigh real commercial results over technology prospects. China had already raised the IPO bar for humanoid-robot startups in September. This autumn, a listed embodied-AI company’s chief executive publicly alleged that some companies had faked revenue, and rumors circulated that several IPOs had been paused, 36Kr reported.
Wang Yang, a managing partner at Songhe Capital, told Daily Economic News that his firm still tracks the sector but now favors early-stage deals and has slowed investment in growth-stage companies whose products are far from commercial use. He called the change "不是小回调" (not a small correction).
Orders, not demonstrations, now set the price of the next round
Investors described new conditions for funding, 36Kr reported: a clear commercial use, real customer demand and founders who bring industry relationships. Some capital is moving toward suppliers of components, joints and equipment that already have orders. At the top of the market, one company valued above RMB20 billion is folding spun-off subsidiaries back in and trimming research, while some firms valued above RMB10 billion have cut staff and withdrawn job offers.
The test now is delivery. More than 70% of customers at BlueRun portfolio company Youibot make repeat purchases, Cao Wei told Daily Economic News, the kind of figure investors say they want to see. The next round of Hong Kong listing hearings for robot makers, and the price at which their shares open, will show whether public investors accept the same conditions that private ones now demand.