JD.com Makes Big Moves: Leads Investment in 3 Robotics Firms Within a Single Day

On July 21, three embodied AI companies—ZQ Robotics, Qianxun Intelligence, and Jizhi Dynamics—announced consecutive financing rounds, with JD.com appearing as the lead investor in all three.

Among them, ZQ Robotics announced the completion of its Pre-A++ and A1 financing rounds, totaling nearly 1 billion yuan. The Pre-A++ round was invested in by Xinghang Capital, established with XPeng Motors as a cornerstone investor. The A1 round was led by JD.com, with participation from industrial investors such as Puquan Capital (under CATL) and Intime Group, as well as financial investors including Huakong Fund, Guochen Fund (under Dasan Wealth Management), and Huangpu River Capital. Existing shareholders such as Middle East Capital, Guoxiang Capital, Honghui Fund, Xunshang Venture Capital, and Baohe Venture Capital also made continuous additional investments.

Qianxun Intelligence completed a PreA+ financing round of nearly 600 million yuan. It was led by JD.com, with co-investments from well-known institutions such as China Internet Investment Fund, Zhejiang Province Science and Technology Innovation Parent Fund, Huatai Zijin, and Fosun Rui Zheng. Existing shareholders including Prosperity7 Ventures (P7), Shunwei Capital, Huakong Fund, Huafa Group, Qiancheng Capital, Jingya Capital, and Honghui Fund made over-subscribed additional investments. Gaogu Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

Jizhi Dynamics completed a new round of financing, strategically led by JD.com.

These three companies are popular players in the embodied AI industry. While they have different backgrounds, their capabilities each have distinct focuses.

ZQ Robotics was founded by Zhao Tongyang, the founder of XPeng's previous robotics team 'Pengxing Intelligence'. Compared to other companies in the industry, ZQ Robotics places greater emphasis on本体 (body/hardware) capabilities. By integrating traditional motion control technology with reinforcement learning, it has connected modules for motion control, force control, planning and control, visual-language navigation, and positioning, achieving coverage of products ranging from bipedal to full-size humanoid robots.

Currently, ZQ Robotics has launched three humanoid robot products: SA01, designed for the research and education market; SE01, a full-size general-purpose humanoid robot; and PM01, a lightweight general-purpose humanoid robot. Additionally, it showcased its first quadruped robot leopard in May. Notably, in April this year, American internet celebrity Speed (known as '甲亢哥') interacted with ZQ Robotics in an enthusiastic dance battle.

After completing its financing round, Zongqing Robot announced it will accelerate its development pace in the second half of the year. On the product dimension, it is fully pushing forward the process of scaled trial production and delivery, increasing the scale and capability of its existing production and delivery team by five times to ensure efficient response speeds that meet market demand. Regarding technological competitiveness, it will continue to increase R&D investment in Embodied AI technology, accelerating the scenario-based implementation and commercial application of core technologies, thereby maintaining global leadership in comprehensive competitiveness.

Qianxun Intelligence was established in February 2024 by Han Fengtao, former CTO of Rokae Robotics, and Gao Yang, Assistant Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University. Qianxun Intelligence focuses more on embodied models while also engaging in body construction. In terms of products, its self-developed VLA model 'Spirit v1' recently underwent an iterative upgrade, enabling it to complete office tasks such as desk organization, throwing away trash, and returning seats to their original positions.

In June this year, it released the fully controllable humanoid robot Moz1, equipped with its self-developed VLA model. The robot features 26 degrees of freedom throughout its body, integrates the world's highest power density integrated force-controlled joints, and is equipped with top-tier domestic high-precision, high-speed WBC algorithms, achieving a load-to-weight ratio of 1:1. The robot supports zero-latency full-body teleoperation. Coupled with self-developed multi-dimensional data acquisition equipment, it can efficiently complete data collection, supporting hourly model iterations.

In the future, Qianxun Intelligence will adhere to a dual-wheel drive strategy of technological breakthroughs and scenario implementation: on one hand, it will continuously explore the capability limits of the VLA model and break through the performance boundaries of robot hardware to build a solid foundation for development with technical strength; on the other hand, it plans to enter high-value-added scenarios, achieving industrialization through practical scenario refinement, allowing technical value to be fully realized in applications.

Zhuji Power (LimX Dynamics) was established in January 2022. Founder Zhang Wei is a Tenured Professor at Southern University of Science and Technology, while co-founder Zhang Li previously served as COO of an autonomous driving unicorn and as an executive at a Fortune Global 500 company. It focuses on supporting and accelerating the general platform for Embodied AI robots in research, development, and application.

In terms of products, its bipedal robot TRON 1 was released last October. Recently, TRON 1 successively launched mobile operation, perception expansion, and voice interaction kits for developers. This year, it released the LimX VGM Embodied Model, which achieves technical innovation in robot manipulation using human operation video data. The entire process requires zero real-machine sample data and enables multi-platform generalization.

It is reported that LimX Dynamics will publicly sell its full-size humanoid robot, which has completed mass production preparation, in the second half of this year, and will bring more significant progress in the VLA field.

Against the backdrop of major tech companies competing to become the 'financial backers' of Embodied AI, JD.com's heavy investment undoubtedly adds fuel to the fire for the entire industry. Regarding leading investments in three Embodied AI companies, JD.com stated that it places high importance on technological hotspots including Embodied AI and large models, focusing on supply chain scenarios to drive innovative applications. JD.com continues to build a technological innovation ecosystem through internal technological innovation and external investments, enabling technology to create value for industries and consumers.

In fact, JD.com's layout in the Embodied AI field did not start only in July. In July 2024, JD.com invested in AI cooking robot developer 'Oak Deer Technology', and also participated in the investment of Zhiyuan Robot in May of this year. To date, JD.com has laid out investments in Embodied AI companies such as Qianxun Intelligence, Zhiyuan Robot, Zhongqing Robot, Oak Deer Technology, and LimX Dynamics.

Moreover, besides external investment layouts, JD.com is also building its own self-developed team. As early as March of this year, JD.com established a special department for Embodied AI and recruited Shen Hui, Vice President of SenseTime, as its head.

Furthermore, in July of this year, JD.com launched the 'JoyInside Platform'. Through the 'JoyInside Platform', JD.com embeds its large model interaction capabilities into hardware device terminals such as robots, toys, and home furnishings, constructing an integrated Embodied AI ecosystem of 'hardware + software + services'.