Chinese embodied-intelligence startup Westlake Robotics has closed a Series A round led by Haiyuan Capital, capping a torrid stretch that has seen the Hangzhou-based company raise a total of RMB 500 million across four financings in just six months.
The Series A At A Glance
The latest round is sized at nearly RMB 100 million (roughly US$14 million) and will fund research into a unified whole-body large model for humanoid robots and a new embodied-intelligence talent cultivation base, according to TMTPost. Prior rounds attracted SAIF Partners, Xiaomiao Langcheng and Henan Investment Group's Huirong Fund, giving the company a mix of state, industrial and venture backers uncommon for a two-year-old university spin-out.
Why Investors Are Piling In
Founded by Westlake University professor Wang Donglin, the company operates a full-stack humanoid programme built around its Westlake o1 platform and the GAE general-purpose motion foundation model. Chinese investors have raced into embodied AI in 2026, chasing a market that has produced landmark rounds such as Neura Robotics' Series C and Skild AI's US$1.4B raise. Westlake's pitch is a Chinese-built brain plus body stack aimed at logistics patrol, data acquisition and cultural-tourism deployments.
The Bigger Picture
The dense cadence — four rounds in half a year — mirrors the pace at which Chinese local governments and industrial capital are matching venture money to lock down domestic humanoid supply chains. Coverage on Apptronik's Apollo 2 debut, DeepMind's Gemini Robotics 2 and China's BYD Xiao Di rollout shows how fast the humanoid stack is consolidating around foundation-model brains and repeatable service deployments. Westlake now has capital to keep up — and, unusually for the space, revenue attached to the tech: partnerships with Alibaba, Intel and JD.com have driven orders approaching RMB 100 million.
Reporting based on coverage from TMTPost, 36Kr and Gasgoo.