With its incubator holding back new money and its stake carried at about RMB32.8 million, Amigos must find another lead investor while embodied-AI deal flow is shrinking.
Amigos Robot, the Beijing embodied-AI startup that Anker Innovations incubated and backed, has lost its former chief technology officer, chief operating officer and head of product, and has cut its staff from a peak of about 130 people to just over 70, interns included. Leiphone’s 鲸犀 column reported the departures on November 11, and Jiemian and IT Home carried them on November 12. Another round of staff cuts is under way, according to the reports.
The reports rest partly on unnamed sources. A person familiar with the matter said Anker no longer wants to add money to Amigos, in part because embodied AI takes a long time to turn into revenue, and that the startup has run into cash-flow problems. One of its investors said the company is still operating normally. Jiemian and IT Home carried no response from Amigos or Anker.
Jiemian’s reading of Anker’s own accounts adds a hard number. Anker added no new equity in Amigos in the first half of 2026 and booked a loss of about RMB1.54 million on its stake under the equity method.
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Liu Fang founded the company in September 2024. He previously served as product and technology lead and mass-production lead for autonomous driving at Xiaomi’s car business. According to Jiemian, he joined Anker in the second half of 2024 to run a newly formed embodied-robot team, reporting to an Anker vice president, and left a few months later to start his own company, with Anker leading its first financing.
That seed round closed in March 2025 at around RMB100 million, according to Jiemian. KrASIA, in a November 2025 profile drawn from 36Kr reporting, said Anker and Xinglian Capital co-led it, with Sunwoda and K2VC joining. An angel round followed with CICC Capital, Peakvest and Xinglian, taking the total to nearly RMB200 million.
Amigos builds robots for sorting, assembly and inspection in consumer-electronics (3C) plants. In KrASIA’s profile a year ago, Liu said that each robot costs about RMB200,000 and replaces two to two-and-a-half workers, so a customer recovers the cost within one to two years. Three key accounts were running its robots at the time. Jiemian noted that the company’s website lists a first factory deployment in October 2025 and its first commercial order, and first overseas order, in December. Amigos has not disclosed order values, delivery numbers or revenue.
Anker’s accounts show the stake being marked down
Anker recorded a new equity investment of RMB35.53 million in Amigos in 2025, with a carrying value of about RMB35.54 million at year end, Jiemian reported. By the end of June 2026 that value had fallen to about RMB32.81 million. Amigos disclosed no new funding round in the first half.
The cut comes as Anker reshapes its wider robot portfolio. Its half-year report shows it no longer has significant influence over Cell Robotics, a consumer-robot company it backed in 2021, and has moved that stake out of long-term equity investments, though Jiemian notes that this does not mean Anker has sold it. Anker’s own robot products, such as robot vacuums and lawn mowers, are already in mass production, while a robot dog is still awaiting a launch date.
The wider market is also tighter. EastFrontier reported last month that embodied-AI investors were pulling back as deal flow halved. A commentary published by 36Kr on November 12 cited IT Juzi data showing 33 embodied-AI financings worth RMB10.105 billion in October through October 29, down from 60 deals worth RMB11.028 billion in September. It also said some early shareholders are offering stakes at 65% to 80% of the last round’s valuation.
Amigos now needs a new backer or proof of revenue
Amigos has said it plans to build up data on the scale of 10,000 hours by the end of 2026, to train the models behind its robots. With a smaller team and without its technology and operations chiefs, that goal and the delivery of its first orders now rest on Liu and the remaining staff.
The startup has three paths: a new financing round led by someone other than Anker, revenue from repeat orders in 3C plants, or a deeper retreat. Anker’s next periodic report will show whether the carrying value of its stake keeps falling. Before then, the clearest signal will be any announcement from Amigos naming a new investor or a new chief technology officer.