China's humanoid robot maker Galbot rides embodied AI boom to raise $300 million
The company says it already has paying customers in industrial manufacturing, smart city services, warehouse logistics and healthcare.
Galbot, a Chinese maker of humanoid robots, has raised more than 300 million dollars in fresh capital, lifting its total funding to 800 million dollars and valuing the company at $3 billion. The round, which the company says is the largest single financing in the embodied AI sector, further entrenches its position in a field that blends large AI models with general‑purpose robots.
The money comes from investors in China, Singapore and the Middle East, signalling that capital allocators across Asia and the Gulf remain keen on hardware-heavy bets so long as they come wrapped in an artificial-intelligence story. Galbot, based in Beijing with research centres in Shenzhen, Suzhou and Hong Kong, claims to be the first company to build, in-house, the full stack of high-quality datasets, embodied foundation models and robotic hardware for its humanoid systems. Its flagship Galbot G1 robot is already deployed in manufacturing, logistics, retail and healthcare, with more than a year of continuous real‑world operation behind it.
For global investors, the deal underscores how humanoid robots have become the next contested terrain in the wider AI arms race, drawing comparisons with US efforts such as Tesla’s Optimus and a crop of American and European startups. As Chinese companies double down on “embodied intelligence” to offset labour shortages and to automate factories, warehouses and service work, the combination of proprietary data, large models and vertically integrated hardware is emerging as a favoured strategy. Galbot’s $3 billion price tag suggests that, in China at least, humanoid robotics is shifting from speculative prototype to an investable industrial platform.
“Galbot is the world’s first company to fully achieve full-stack in-house development across hundreds-of-billion-scale high-quality datasets, embodied foundation models, and robotic hardware,” the company said. “These innovations have laid a solid technological foundation for the large-scale deployment of humanoid robots.”
The company says it already has paying customers. In industrial manufacturing, it has signed up CATL, Bosch, Toyota and Hyundai, and claims to be the first company to deploy humanoid robots in real autonomous operations on factory floors, with orders for thousands of units. In smart-city services, its Galbot Store — an autonomous retail outlet run by G1 robots — operates in more than 30 cities, while logistics sites use its machines around the clock and hospitals such as Xuanwu deploy them in wards, pharmacies and for way finding.
With the new capital, Galbot plans to accelerate research, scale deployments and expand overseas, pitching itself as a standard-bearer for China’s bid to lead in general-purpose robotics. The company says it aims to “advance embodied AI technology” and speed up the industrial rollout of autonomous humanoids worldwide, a promise that will now be tested in export markets and in the unforgiving economics of full-scale automation.