Qingtianzu Raises Hundreds of Millions in Strategic Funding, Pivots from Robot Leasing to Productivity Services

On November 13, Qingtianzu announced the closing of a strategic funding round worth hundreds of millions of yuan, alongside a business model upgrade that shifts its focus from robot leasing to productivity services. The company plans to scale robot deployments across diverse scenarios using its Worken productivity measurement framework, cross-brand cluster scheduling, and regional fulfillment network.

On November 13, Qingtianzu announced the completion of a strategic financing round worth hundreds of millions of RMB, alongside a brand and business model upgrade that shifts its focus from robot leasing to robot productivity services. The company stated it will advance robot deployment across multiple scenarios by leveraging the Worken productivity measurement framework, cross-brand cluster scheduling, and a regional fulfillment network.

Historically, robot services have centered on equipment leasing. However, as applications expand from single-robot demonstrations to multi-robot collaboration, customers require more than just the robot hardware—they also need task orchestration, on-site deployment, and continuous operations. With this strategic shift, Qingtianzu is attempting to pivot its service focus from merely providing equipment to delivering the actual capability of robots to complete work.

Extending from equipment supply to task orchestration

As robots enter diverse scenarios, equipment models, capabilities, and task requirements vary significantly. Customers must select the right hardware for specific tasks while managing commissioning, operations and maintenance, and on-site support. For robot manufacturers, expanding the integration of their hardware into more application scenarios is also critical to maximizing utilization rates.

Qingtianzu’s platform services have therefore expanded to include equipment matching, task orchestration, cluster scheduling, and ongoing support. The company reports that it has integrated nearly 20 robot hardware brands in addition to AgiBot, including Gaoqing, Yingzhi XBOT, Shouxing, Youshijie, and ENGINEAI. While this multi-brand ecosystem broadens the selection for various scenarios, it also introduces new requirements for cross-brand scheduling, skill adaptation, and on-site service delivery.

Qingtianzu is currently developing a robot cluster operating system alongside the necessary operational capabilities, using its scheduling system to organize hardware, skills, and work tasks. The goal is to enable customers to procure robot services on a per-task basis, thereby reducing the capital expenditure required for outright equipment purchases and self-deployment.

Worken attempts to measure the work completed by robots

As robots transition from standalone operation to cluster-based workflows, simple metrics like equipment count and operating hours no longer fully capture service output. Centered on the Worken framework, Qingtianzu proposes measuring the effective output of autonomous robot operations using the formula: active robot count × autonomous operating hours × output efficiency ratio. This metric is then applied to performance evaluation, value accounting, and service settlement.

This framework focuses on the amount of effective work a robot completes in a specific task, rather than merely how many times the device is dispatched or how long it runs. Qingtianzu aims to gradually establish a recordable, comparable, and billable measurement system to provide a basis for service pricing and delivery across various scenarios.

Whether this measurement framework proves effective still depends on how tasks and outputs are defined, how different scenarios are compared, and how autonomous operating hours and output efficiency ratios are recorded. As robots integrate into more real-world workflows, these questions will also determine the applicability of Worken in service settlement and operations management.

Regional service networks support local delivery

Beyond fleet scheduling, robot services also require local teams to handle deployment and operations. Qingtianzu states that it currently has 20 national operations centers up and running, covering cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. In the first phase, the company plans to set up 54 city service nodes to build a two-hour on-site service radius.

The company also plans to advance the digital management of its operations centers, skilled personnel, application solutions, and equipment assets to support cross-regional scheduling and solution reuse. For a robot service platform, equipment resources and scheduling systems must be integrated with local delivery capabilities to scale from one-off projects to ongoing operations.

This funding round included participation from Heda Investment, Mango Industrial Investor (Houwei Capital), and Zhonglian Jisong, among others. Qingtianzu stated that the funds will be used for R&D in application services, the Worken training system, industrial ecosystem development, and upgrading its national fulfillment network.

This business upgrade expands Qingtianzu’s service scope from equipment leasing to task organization, productivity measurement, and regional delivery. Worken, cross-brand scheduling, and service nodes form the core capability framework for this approach. Whether this will ultimately yield stable service standards remains to be seen and will need to be validated through real-world deployments across various scenarios.