Zhiyuan Robotics’ leasing unit Qingtianzu secured several hundred million yuan at a 7 billion yuan valuation, signaling a strategic pivot from event rentals to industrial applications and validating the Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) model in China's competitive robotics market.
Zhiyuan Robotics’ leasing subsidiary Qingtianzu is now valued at 7 billion yuan ($966 million) after completing two new funding rounds, a move that accelerates the company’s strategic shift from event-based robot rentals to higher-demand industrial applications. The financing, totaling several hundred million yuan, provides the capital to push humanoid robots beyond marketing events and into manufacturing, logistics, and commercial service roles where they can generate recurring value.
"The difficulty of getting robots into real-world scenarios is not just about 'having the machine,' but about forming a stable and replicable application delivery capability," Qingtianzu CEO Li Yiyan said. "Especially in industrial and campus scenarios, customers are no longer focused on short-term display effects, but on whether the robot can operate continuously, be dispatched on demand, and create actual value."
The Series A and A+ rounds will fund the expansion of Qingtianzu's Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform, which already manages a network of over 4,000 deployable robots. The company’s growth reflects a sharp drop in rental costs, with daily rates falling from a peak of around 20,000 yuan to as low as 3,000 yuan as the market has become more standardized, according to public data.
This pivot from demonstrations to deployment marks a critical maturation point for the commercial robotics sector. The industry is transitioning from what Agibot president Dr. Yao Maoqing describes as the "X curve" of technology exploration to the "Y curve" of real-world growth. Qingtianzu's focus on industrial manufacturing and logistics places it directly on this new curve, testing the thesis that robots can become a form of productivity infrastructure rather than just a novelty.
For years, the primary application for advanced humanoid robots was limited to entertainment, exhibitions, and marketing events. While visually impressive, these use cases offered little in terms of scalable, recurring revenue or meaningful workflow integration. Qingtianzu’s strategic shift acknowledges this limitation, redirecting resources toward industrial and commercial scenarios where the demand for automation is constant and the return on investment is clearer.
This transition is a central challenge for the entire industry. According to a recent market report from ResearchAndMarkets, while the commercial humanoid robotics market reached an estimated $0.9 billion in 2025, sustained commercial deployments remain concentrated among a few key players, with China accounting for over 80% of installations. The report highlights the gap between flashy demos and the reliability needed for industrial tasks, noting that no major manufacturer currently publishes mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) data—a critical metric for any enterprise automation investment.
Qingtianzu is entering a field that is both promising and intensely competitive. The broader industrial robotics market is forecast to grow from $65.1 billion in 2026 to $343.8 billion by 2036, according to Future Market Insights. The more nascent humanoid robotics segment is projected to hit $7.0 billion by 2030, but it is attracting enormous investment, with an estimated $4-5 billion in sector-specific funding in 2025 alone.
This creates a high-pressure environment with a funding-to-revenue ratio of roughly 4-to-1, reminiscent of the autonomous vehicle sector in its early days. Key Chinese players like Agibot, which has shipped over 5,100 units, and UBTECH Robotics, with over $112 million in cumulative orders, have already established significant scale. In the West, companies like Figure AI, which is piloting its robots at a BMW manufacturing plant, and Agility Robotics are also competing for industrial dominance.
For investors, Qingtianzu’s success hinges on its ability to prove the RaaS model is more capital-efficient than direct sales. By lowering the upfront cost for customers, the company can accelerate adoption and build a recurring revenue stream. This funding round gives Zhiyuan’s subsidiary the firepower to compete, but its ultimate success will depend on its ability to deliver not just robots, but reliable, real-world outcomes in the factories and warehouses where the productivity battle will be won.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
