Meituan's Wang Xing, Refusing to Miss the Next Wang Xingxing

If you have been following the recent financing and investment news in the embodied AI industry, you would have certainly noticed that Meituan's name appears very frequently.

Just ten days into July, Meituan had already made two consecutive investments in companies within the embodied AI sector: Tashi Zhixing (It Stone Intelligent Navigation) and Xinghai Tu (Star Map).

On July 8, Tashi Zhixing announced the completion of its angel-plus funding round totaling $122 million, with Meituan Strategic Investment leading the round.

On July 9, Xinghai Tu announced the completion of its Series A4 and A5 strategic financing rounds. One of the lead investors in the A4 round was Meituan Dragon Ball, while the A5 round was co-led by Meituan Dragon Ball and Meituan Strategic Investment. The combined funding amount for these two rounds exceeded $100 million.

In fact, Meituan's two consecutive investments in embodied AI companies in July were by no means accidental.

A careful review of documents and data reveals that Meituan has invested in five embodied AI companies since the beginning of 2025, and also made investments in two such companies in 2024.

On June 30, 2025, Meituan Dragon Ball led an additional investment in Kano Si Teng before leading Stone Intelligence, helping it complete a new round of financing totaling 800 million yuan.

On May 12, Meituan Strategic Investment led the round and Meituan Dragon Ball followed, helping X Square Robot complete Series A funding amounting to hundreds of millions of yuan.

On April 14, Meituan Dragon Ball invested in Miaodong Technology, helping it complete its angel round of financing worth tens of millions of US dollars.

In February and September 2024, Meituan Strategic Investment and Meituan Dragon Ball participated in Unitree's B+ round of financing totaling 1 billion yuan and its C round of financing worth hundreds of millions of US dollars, respectively.

That same June, Meituan Strategic Investment co-led the round, helping Galbot complete its angel round of financing totaling 700 million yuan.

Within less than a year and a half, Meituan had already invested in seven Embodied AI companies. According to statistics, the combined valuation of these seven companies has exceeded 35 billion yuan.

Among them, the two Embodied AI companies Meituan invested in during 2024, Unitree and Galbot, have since become star companies in the industry, demonstrating exceptionally sharp investment acumen.

Wang Xing missed out on Wang Xingxing at age 25

According to Tianyancha data, Meituan is the second-largest shareholder of Unitree Robotics. Hanhai Information Technology, a subsidiary of Meituan, holds an 8.2498% stake in Unitree, trailing only Wang Xingxing’s personal holding of 27.8094%.

Actually, Wang Xing and Wang Xingxing had already met back in 2017. So why did Meituan invest in Unitree only in 2024?

During the乌镇 (Wuzhen) Internet Conference in 2017, Zhang Peng from GeekPark privately organized an afternoon tea gathering attended by industry heavyweights including Wang Xing and Lei Jun. At that time, Wang Xingxing, then relatively unknown, was also present, sitting next to Wang Xing. Introduced by Zhang Peng, Wang Xingxing, who was just 25 years old and had founded Unitree only one year prior, demonstrated Unitree’s robotic dog to internet executives such as Wang Xing, Lei Jun, and Zhou Yuan.

However, according to Zhang Peng, the robotic dog encountered issues during its demonstration. Fortunately, everyone remained tolerant, given that robotic dogs were still considered a nascent technology at the time. Nevertheless, Unitree did not attract capital interest at that moment. The young Wang Xingxing missed the opportunity to secure early investments, and Meituan’s Wang Xing missed out on investing in the 25-year-old Wang Xingxing and seizing the chance to back a future star in the Embodied AI sector.

But did this incident alone prompt Wang Xing to later make substantial investments in Embodied AI? Clearly, no. This stems from Meituan’s earlier strategic planning.

Why Is Meituan Investing in Embodied AI?

Although its core business focuses on local consumer services, through strategic investments, Meituan has become a leading player in the field of embodied intelligence. This is closely tied to Meituan’s continuous long-term planning and layout.

As early as 2017, Wang Xing had already proposed the concept of the "second half of the internet," which encompassed going high-tech ("to the sky"), penetrating underground, and global expansion. Here, "to the sky" referred to high technology. At that time, Wang Xing emphasized that future operations might even utilize autonomous driving technology and robots for delivery. Furthermore, in March 2021, Wang Xing set the development tone: Meituan's business growth requires not only software but also hardware, with robots currently being one of the key vertical fields for Meituan's investment.

Since 2021, Meituan has made significant investments in Embodied AI, a move driven by three key factors.

First, methods such as using robots to enhance corporate production efficiency have been widely discussed. With rising labor costs and diversified consumer demands, various industries have increasingly strong appeals for "cost reduction and efficiency improvement," making robots an important solution to production efficiency problems.

Second, Meituan's strategic adjustment. In a strategic meeting in September 2021, Wang Xing first publicly stated that the company's strategy was "Retail + Technology," moving away from the "Food + Platform" model centered on "eating." Following this strategic adjustment in 2021, Meitanzhulong gradually expanded its focus into the technology sector, rather than just consumption.

Third, ample cash reserves. To invest, having sufficient funds is essential. Meituan's financial reports show that cash and cash equivalents began to grow after 2020. As of December 31, 2024, Meituan's financial report indicated a total of cash and cash equivalents on hand of 168.2 billion RMB, with operating cash flow amounting to 16.9 billion RMB. This gave Meituan more energy and capital for external investments.

Moreover, in March this year, during the investor conference call for Meituan's Q4 and full-year 2024 financial results, Wang Xing stated: Our strategy for AI is offensive rather than defensive. We will use everything we possess to attempt an offensive approach, actively striving to achieve our leading position in AI.

The boldness of this statement is reflected not only in Wang Xing's tone but also in the scale of Meituan's spending on AI. Wang Puzhong, CEO of Meituan's Core Local Consumer Services, revealed: Meituan's investment in AI is extremely substantial, with annual expenditures exceeding 10 billion RMB.

In Meituan's AI strategy, artificial intelligence must enter the physical world, which requires not only highly intelligent algorithms or models but also infrastructure in the physical world.

In 2024, Meituan invested billions of yuan in building GPU resources, and Wang Xing stated during the March earnings call that the company plans to further increase investment in key AI infrastructure in 2025.

In terms of investments, Meituan has consistently heavily invested in cutting-edge technology fields such as AI and robotics, including Moonshot AI, Zhipu AI, AI chip company Aixin Yuanzhi (AxonLink), and AI infrastructure company SiliconFlow. In the robotics sector, it has invested in companies such as Unitree, Galaxy-Universal, Flexiv Robotics, and Gaoxian Robotics.

Wang Xing stated that AI will significantly drive the development of the robotics business. Meituan hopes to deepen cooperation with its invested robotics enterprises to promote a more organic integration of robotics and AI, continuing iteration in areas such as automated delivery.

These steps are crucial for Meituan's layout of physical world infrastructure in the AI era. Wang Xing believes that in the AI era, Meituan will continue to play the role of a connector, bridging the digital and physical worlds, which is Meituan's strength.

Furthermore, as a giant in local life services, Meituan has rigid demand for Embodied AI in areas such as instant delivery and unmanned warehousing. As food delivery is Meituan's core business, costs have always been an unavoidable issue, which is also a key reason for Meituan's heavy investment in Embodied AI.

For example, according to the 2021 annual report data, Meituan's food delivery revenue was 96.3 billion yuan. During the same period, over 5.27 million riders earned income through the platform, and the cost expenditure for rider deliveries was approximately 68.2 billion yuan, an increase of 38.3% from the previous year, accounting for 71% of catering delivery revenue.

Faced with severe delivery cost issues, it is only natural for Meituan to invest in the Embodied AI industry to seek cost-reduction strategies. Robotics, drones, and other Embodied technologies that connect the digital and physical worlds possess core advantages in both reliability and cost.

Investing in Service Automation

In this process, Meituan has built an intelligent robotics industry ecosystem covering various niche scenarios such as delivery, services, cleaning, and healthcare, centered on local life scenarios. The core objective is to accelerate the unattended progress of service scenarios and enhance delivery and operational efficiency.

In terms of delivery robots, Meituan has focused heavily on the last-mile delivery track, having invested in indoor delivery robot company Youdi Technology, outdoor delivery robot company White Rhino, and food delivery solution provider Pudu Robotics. It also established the Meituan Robotics Institute in 2022. Furthermore, Meituan took a strategic stake in autonomous driving startup Haomo Smart (Haomo AI) to provide technical support for its unmanned delivery system.

Regarding service robots, Meituan has developed hardware service robots including automatic delivery vehicles, drones, and indoor robots, as well as software service robots such as intelligent customer service systems.

Among these, carrier robots like automatic delivery vehicles and drones have achieved a certain level of commercialization. Data shows that by the end of 2024, Meituan Drones had launched 53 routes with over 450,000 cumulative delivery orders; automatic delivery vehicles had completed nearly 5 million cumulative deliveries, serving hundreds of communities' delivery needs, with an autonomous driving mileage proportion of 99%. Additionally, through investments in companies like Gaoxian Robotics and Yunji Technology, Meituan further expanded into diversified application scenarios such as hotel cleaning, building delivery, and medical nursing.

According to calculations by Tianfeng Securities this year, large-scale application of unmanned delivery could save Meituan tens of billions of yuan in rider costs.

1. Drones: The total operating cost of a single drone over its lifecycle is 84,500 yuan, dropping as low as 1,400 yuan per month, representing a 75%-90% decrease compared to existing rider wages; assuming one-third of labor is replaced, rider costs would drop by 25%-30%;

2. Unmanned vehicles: Under the same calculation logic, the monthly cost is approximately 1,600 yuan (based on a 5-year depreciation assumption), representing a 70%-85% reduction compared to existing rider wages. The potential scale of cost savings for riders could reach tens of billions of yuan.

Meituan has successively invested in unmanned delivery via drones and autonomous vehicles. However, challenges remain in fully delivering items directly to consumers' hands; the final 100 meters of delivery still require human intervention or smart lockers. Therefore, continued investment in robotics allows the entire unmanned delivery ecosystem to form a closed loop.

In Meituan's strategic view, Embodied AI not only helps achieve cost reductions but also serves as a critical infrastructure connecting the digital and physical worlds. Previous post-investment collaborations reflect a 'scenario empowerment' approach. For instance, the collaboration between Meituan Pharmacy and Galbot to create the Galbot and smart pharmacy solution exemplifies the deep integration of embodied technology with its own business operations. As a local life services company, Meituan possesses a massive user base and rich application scenarios, giving it natural advantages in the rapid implementation of Embodied AI technologies.

Imagine this: drones gliding through low-altitude airspace outside the window, robots actively delivering downstairs, and engineers debugging embodied models at a nearby research institute. Wang Xing's blueprint for connecting the digital and physical worlds using embodied technology is becoming a reality.

Thus, Meituan's substantial investment in Embodied AI is not merely about cost reduction; it is betting on the future of comprehensive automation across the service industry.