Suzhou-based collaborative robot maker Fa'ao Robotics said it has completed C+ and D funding rounds, raising nearly 1 billion yuan ($140 million) in total. Meituan Longzhu led the C+ round and Meituan led the D round, the company said. Yongxin Capital, Shishan Phase II and Suzhou Venture Capital participated in the series, while existing shareholders Guolian Minsheng Capital, Suzhou Industrial Investment and Qingliu Capital increased their investments. Proceeds will mainly fund fixed-asset investment in core component capacity and expansion and R&D in industrial embodied intelligence, including its ART-series industrial humanoid force-controlled arms and AIRLab embodied intelligence tool platform.

MIRAVA, a water-surface smart consumer hardware brand under Shaanxi-based embodied intelligence company ORCAUBOAT, said it has raised nearly 50 million yuan in an angel round led by Jiuhe Venture Capital, with Chuxin Capital and Eversnow participating. The proceeds will mainly fund mass production of smart yacht products, first customer deliveries and European market expansion. MIRAVA focuses on the water consumer market and aims to integrate smart technology into water lifestyles. In September, it made its debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival, presenting its M800 to the European market for the first time.

Shenzhen ABROBOT Medical Robot Co., Ltd. said it has raised tens of millions of yuan in a Series A+ funding round led by Puhe Capital, with Longgang Financial Holdings participating. Founded in June 2020 by Professor Guo Shuxiang, a foreign member of the Engineering Academy of Japan and an IEEE Fellow, and his team, ABROBOT focuses on the development and commercialization of vascular interventional surgical robots. Its products cover neurological, coronary, peripheral and oncological interventions. The company's first-generation PANVIS-A cerebrovascular interventional surgical assistance system received a Class III registration certificate from China's National Medical Products Administration in August 2024.

ACE Robotics and PetroChina Shanghai Sales Company have formed a strategic partnership to launch a pilot fully closed-loop embodied AI robot project in a gas station convenience store, the companies said.

The partners will combine PetroChina Shanghai Sales' digital platform, supply chain system and offline convenience store network with ACE Robotics' capabilities in the Kaiwu world model, robot hardware and embodied intelligence technology. They aim to explore a four-in-one embodied retail co-creation model—"scenarios set the tasks, platforms coordinate, models drive, and robots execute"—and build a warehouse-store integrated smart retail paradigm for real business scenarios.

Jiangte Electric (002176.SZ) said it plans to invest 100 million yuan alongside affiliated investors in Vita Dynamics' Pre-A+++ funding round, with a total capital increase of 300 million yuan. The affiliated investors will contribute 200 million yuan. The deal gives Vita Dynamics a pre-money valuation of 3 billion yuan. After the capital increase, Jiangte Electric and the affiliated investors are expected to hold 3.0303% and 6.0606%, respectively. Jiangte also said it has started joint development of dexterous hand motors and key components with Vita Dynamics, and the products are planned to be supplied to third-party robot OEMs.

DeepSeek plans to lead a funding round of tens of millions of dollars in robotics AI company Winverse AI, people familiar with the matter said. Meituan's Longzhu Capital and others have also committed, valuing Winverse at about $400 million (2.7 billion yuan). The deal is not final and details could change. If completed, it would be one of DeepSeek's largest startup investments since its 2023 founding. DeepSeek previously invested in Unitree Robotics, holding 0.2308%, or 933,399 shares, to co-develop embodied intelligence models. Founded in 2026, Winverse focuses on robot AI models. Founder Hu Han earned a bachelor's degree from Tsinghua in 2008 and a PhD there in 2014. He was previously a Tencent Distinguished Scientist leading Hunyuan vision-language and embodied foundation model teams, and worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Baidu.

D-Robotics made its debut at the 26th China International Industry Fair (CIIF), which opened at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) on Oct. 12, showcasing full-stack AI capabilities for visual inspection, industrial data collection and industrial embodied intelligence. The company presented its Sunrise intelligent computing chips, RDK robot developer kits and RoboGo software platform. For industrial customers, D-Robotics combines edge computing, supporting algorithms and cloud-based development tools.

A team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore won the IROS 2026 Legged Robot Challenge, using GENISOM AI's quadruped robot Tongchui M1, the event concluded at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. During the event, the M1 achieved fully autonomous operation throughout the entire course for the first time. It autonomously perceived the arena environment, dynamically planned its route to complete autonomous navigation, and after reaching the target position autonomously drove its robotic arm to carry out manipulation tasks. The whole process ran fully autonomously, without manual remote-control intervention.

At the 2026 China International Industry Fair, Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree Robotics, said that with breakthroughs in models such as GPT-6, the tipping point for embodied intelligence—its "ChatGPT moment"—could arrive "in as soon as one or two years." He also predicted that next year's GPT-7 may "directly crack the embodied intelligence problem."

AGIBOT, a Chinese humanoid robotics company, said it has formed initial partnerships with more than 20 Chinese universities under its "Yuansheng Ecosystem Development Plan," including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, South China University of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Southeast University and Sun Yat-sen University. The partners will jointly build a platform to integrate industry and education in embodied AI, combining curriculum development, joint research and practical training, to better align cutting-edge industrial technology with university talent development. AGIBOT will deploy more than 1,000 embodied AI devices across its full product lineup, including wheeled, half-size and full-size humanoid robots from its Jingling, Lingxi and Yuanzheng series, as well as Kutuo quadruped robots. It will also provide its AIMA development platform as a complete toolset for systematic university teaching and students' independent research and development. Total investment will reach 200 million yuan, the company said.