Leju Robotics
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Last reviewed
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Leju Robotics (Chinese: 乐聚机器人; officially Leju (Shenzhen) Robotics Co., Ltd., rebranded in 2025 as Leju Intelligence (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese robotics company headquartered in Shenzhen, China, specializing in the research, development, manufacturing, and sales of high-end intelligent humanoid robots. Founded in 2016 by Leng Xiaokun (冷晓琨), a Harbin Institute of Technology graduate born in 1992, the company is best known for its Kuavo series of general-purpose humanoid robots and its Aelos series of educational humanoids. Leju's corporate tagline is "Facilitate People, Empower Society," reflecting its goal of bringing humanoid robots into everyday life. The company maintains its primary base in Shenzhen, with branches in Harbin and Hangzhou, and is widely regarded as one of China's leading humanoid robot startups, often grouped among the "Seven Little Dragons" of the country's humanoid robotics sector.[1][2]
Leju traces its origins to a student robotics team at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), where founder Leng Xiaokun studied computer science. Leng developed his interest in robotics in childhood by disassembling toys and computers, and earned admission to HIT without sitting China's gaokao national college entrance exam after winning a silver medal at a national robotics competition. During his studies, his teams placed first multiple times in the National Robot Championship. He later completed a doctorate at the same institution.[3]
The company was first established in October 2015 in Harbin, with co-founders Chang Lin and An Ziwei joining Leng. Initial capital came from a 30,000 yuan university subsidy and roughly 2 million yuan put up by the founders themselves. The team's early focus was producing low-cost biped research robots for Chinese university labs, addressing a gap in affordable domestic alternatives to foreign platforms.[3]
In March 2016, Leju relocated its headquarters from Harbin to Shenzhen. Leng explained the move as a search for a stronger entrepreneurial environment that would help the team "develop into a more standardized company." Leju (Shenzhen) Robotics Co., Ltd. was formally registered the same year.[3]
In August 2016, Leju launched its first commercial product, the Aelos humanoid robot, which entered mass production almost immediately. Aelos was a 34.6 cm tall biped weighing roughly 1.8 kg, with 16 joints, voice interaction, and language interpretation features aimed at the children's education and entertainment markets. By August 2016 the company had sold approximately 1,200 Aelos units, and an upgraded Aelos II was planned for 2017.[3]
Leju closed a 10 million yuan angel round from Songhe Capital in 2016, followed in 2017 by a pre-Series A round from Shenzhen Capital Group worth tens of millions of yuan, plus a 50 million yuan strategic investment from Tencent. In 2018, Leju expanded its lineup with the Pando series of palm-sized programming robots and added the Roban medium biped platform. A Series B round of approximately $36 million followed in June 2019, led by Aplus Capital with participation from existing investors.[1][2]
An AELOS unit also performed in the closing handover of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics as part of the Beijing 2022 segment, raising the company's international profile.
Leju's strategic shift toward full-size, general-purpose humanoids became public in December 2023, when it unveiled the Kuavo humanoid robot (Chinese name 夸父, Kuafu, after the giant from Chinese mythology who chased the sun). The launch marked Leju's entry into the embodied AI race that had been reshaped by Tesla's Optimus and U.S. labs working on general-purpose humanoids.[4]
In March 2024, Kuavo was shown at the Appliance and Electronics World Expo (AWE) in Shanghai. At Huawei's Developer Conference 2024 (HDC2024) on June 21, 2024, Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Pingan demonstrated Kuavo running on KaihongOS (a HarmonyOS-based operating system from Kaihong Digital Industry) integrated with Huawei's Pangu embodied large model, making Kuavo the first humanoid robot to run on the HarmonyOS ecosystem. By July 2024, local Chinese media reported that Kuavo was being tested at electric vehicle maker NIO's factory and at Jiangsu Hengtong Group for assembly and quality control tasks, becoming the first HarmonyOS-equipped humanoid robot deployed in real factory environments.[5][6]
Leju expanded rapidly through 2025. In January 2025, the company delivered its 100th full-size humanoid robot to BAIC Off-Road Vehicle, where Kuavo was deployed for empty box handling and logistics sorting. During the same month, Kuavo was integrated with the Huozhi (火智) large model developed by Harbin Institute of Technology and tested at venues for the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, where it provided audience guidance and event commentary in temperatures reaching minus 20 degrees Celsius. On February 3, 2025, Kuavo participated in the Asian Winter Games torch relay, performing interactive waves and high-fives with torchbearers; the official mascot robot for the Games, "Aluminum Magnesium Hero III," was based on Leju's Aelos series and used recycled aluminum-magnesium alloy in its chest panel.[7][8]
In the first quarter of 2025, Kuavo received 250 orders, surpassing the company's half-year target. The robot was deployed across universities, exhibition halls, and automotive plants, and Leng told reporters Leju aimed to ship more than 1,000 full-size humanoids by year's end.[9]
On October 22, 2025, Leju closed a 1.5 billion yuan pre-IPO funding round (roughly $207 to 210 million depending on the reporting source), led by Beijing-based Greenwoods Asset Management. The round drew a broad syndicate that included CITIC Goldstone Investment, Shenzhen Investment Holdings Capital, Shenzhen Longhua Capital, Qianhai Basic Investment, Dongfang Precision Science & Technology, Tuopu Group, the China-US Green Fund, Daohe Long-Term Investment, New Alliance Capital, Probing VC, Hefei Industrial Investment, Jiuzhao Investment, plus continued participation from earlier backers Tencent and Shenzhen Capital Group. The capital was earmarked for mass production of Kuavo, expanded partnerships with Chinese technology companies including Huawei, Alibaba Cloud, and Haier, and preparation for a public listing on Shanghai's STAR Market.[10][11][12]
Around the same period, the company restructured and rebranded its operating entity from Leju Robot (Shenzhen) Technology Co. to Leju Intelligence (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., dropping "robotics technology" in favor of "intelligence" to signal a positioning beyond hardware. On October 30, 2025, Leju Intelligent completed its IPO tutoring filing with the Shenzhen Securities Regulatory Bureau, with Orient Securities serving as sponsoring broker.[13]
On November 2, 2025, the Kuavo humanoid made history as a "Zero Torchbearer" during the torch relay for China's 15th National Games in Shenzhen, becoming the first humanoid robot to carry an Olympic-style torch at a major national sporting event. Kuavo gripped a 1.6 kg torch and completed a roughly 100 meter handover between the second and third legs of the relay, supported by 5G-Advanced (5G-A) remote control jointly developed with China Mobile, with additional technical input from Harbin Institute of Technology and the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence.[14][15]
| Name | Role | Background |
|---|---|---|
| Leng Xiaokun (冷晓琨) | Founder, chairman, and CEO | Born 1992, doctorate from Harbin Institute of Technology; recipient of China's May 4th Medal for individuals under 40 |
| Chang Lin | Co-founder | Early HIT robotics team member; involved from 2015 founding |
| An Ziwei | Co-founder | Early HIT robotics team member; involved from 2015 founding |
Leng is regularly cited in Chinese tech media as one of a younger generation of "post-90s" robotics entrepreneurs, alongside figures such as Wang Xingxing of Unitree Robotics.[2][3]
Leju maintains a relatively wide product portfolio spanning educational, research, and industrial humanoids. The lineup has shifted over time as the company has consolidated around the Kuavo platform for general-purpose work, while keeping the Aelos and Pando families for schools and consumers.
The Aelos series, first launched in August 2016, is the company's longest-running product family and one of the most widely shipped Chinese educational humanoids. Aelos units are 30 to 40 cm tall desktop biped robots with 17 to 22 degrees of freedom, designed for K to 12 STEM education, university lab work, and RoboCup-style competitions. Recent variants include Aelos Lite (19 DOF) and Aelos Pro (19 DOF with a built-in camera). They support Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, programmable in Scratch, Google Blockly via the Aelos STEM app, and C++ for more advanced users.[16]
The Kuavo series, launched in late 2023, is Leju's flagship lineup of full-size humanoid robots and the company's primary commercial product since 2024.
| Model | Year | Description | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kuavo 3.0 / 4Pro | 2023 to 2024 | First-generation general-purpose humanoid | Bipedal, KaihongOS, Huawei Pangu integration |
| Kuavo-5 | 2024 to 2025 | Open-platform humanoid for embodied AI research | Modular hardware, list price around $38,000 |
| Kuavo-5W | 2025 | Wheeled variant of Kuavo-5 | Humanoid upper body, wheeled base for indoor mobility |
| Kuavo-MY | 2025 | Compact humanoid for industrial and service use | 1.4 m tall, 40+ degrees of freedom, weight around 45 kg |
Kuavo full-size units stand roughly 1.7 m tall and weigh approximately 45 kg in the Kuavo-MY configuration. The platform uses Leju's self-developed high-torque joint actuators (peak torque 360 Nm, rated motor speed 150 rpm) and walks omnidirectionally at up to 4.6 km/h across surfaces including sand, grass, and factory floors. It can climb stairs, recover from falls, jump roughly 20 cm vertically, and run short distances of 100 m.[17]
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Height | Approximately 1.7 m (full size); 1.4 m (Kuavo-MY) |
| Weight | Approximately 45 kg (Kuavo-MY) |
| Degrees of freedom | 26 (14 in arms, 12 in legs) for Kuavo; 40+ for Kuavo-MY |
| Peak joint torque | 360 Nm |
| Rated motor speed | 150 rpm |
| Walking speed | Up to 4.6 km/h omnidirectional |
| Vertical jump | Approximately 20 cm |
| Operating system | KaihongOS, based on OpenHarmony |
| AI integration | Huawei Pangu embodied large model; HIT Huozhi large model; imitation learning support |
| Locomotion | Bipedal walking, obstacle avoidance, stair climbing, jumping, 100 m running |
| Battery runtime | Reported at over 8 hours per charge |
| List price (Kuavo-5) | Approximately $38,000 USD |
In addition to Aelos and Kuavo, Leju produces several smaller product families targeting specific application segments.[1]
| Series | Year | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Pando | 2018 | Palm-sized panda-shaped coding toy for children; supports Scratch and Python |
| Roban2 | 2018 onward | Medium biped humanoid for hobbyist and educational use |
| Fluvo | Hospital logistics robot for material and medication transport | |
| Cube | Smart building-block kit for primary education | |
| Clamber Man | Heavy-duty cargo and transport robot |
Leju's engineering stack centers on two areas where the team has built independent intellectual property: high-torque joint actuators and self-stabilizing bipedal gait algorithms. The company designs its own torque servos rather than sourcing from third parties, which it credits with keeping joint costs down at scale and enabling movements such as 100 m running on the Kuavo platform.[1]
On the software side, Kuavo runs on KaihongOS, an OpenHarmony-derived operating system from Shenzhen Kaihong Digital Industry. KaihongOS handles real-time motor control and sensor fusion, while higher-level reasoning is delegated to Huawei's Pangu embodied large model and, in some demonstrations, the Huozhi large model from Harbin Institute of Technology. The Kuavo platform also supports imitation learning workflows for teaching new manipulation tasks from human demonstration data.[5][7]
Leju is one of the founding members of Huawei's embodied AI innovation center in Shenzhen, established to coordinate hardware and model development across the HarmonyOS ecosystem.[18]
Leju's robots have been deployed across several sectors. By late 2025, most procurement contracts in the company's winning bids were for universities and vocational schools, but factory and service deployments expanded rapidly through the year.
| Sector | Examples |
|---|---|
| Research and education | Embodied AI research platforms at Peking University and other Chinese universities; Aelos and Pando in K to 12 STEM programs |
| Industrial manufacturing | Vehicle assembly at NIO and BAIC Off-Road Vehicle; quality control at Jiangsu Hengtong Group; 3C electronics and logistics sorting |
| Business services | Exhibition hall guidance, retail and store assistance, bank service interactions |
| Hospitals | Fluvo logistics robots for material transport |
| Public events | Asian Winter Games torch relay (Feb 2025); China's 15th National Games torch relay (Nov 2025) |
| Training data and simulation | Synthetic data generation and embodied AI model training |
Leju maintains active partnerships with around 40 organizations as of 2025. Notable collaborators include:[10][18]
| Partner | Nature of collaboration |
|---|---|
| Huawei | KaihongOS integration; Pangu embodied large model; joint embodied AI innovation center in Shenzhen |
| China Mobile | 5G-Advanced (5G-A) remote control of Kuavo; participated in 15th National Games torch relay |
| Harbin Institute of Technology | Huozhi large model integration; ongoing R&D ties through founder's alma mater |
| Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence | Cognitive software and benchmarks for Kuavo |
| Alibaba Cloud | Cloud infrastructure and AI services |
| Haier | Smart home integration scenarios |
| China Telecom | Elder care and family companionship applications |
| Peking University | National joint laboratory positioning Kuavo as a common research platform |
| NIO | Factory deployment for assembly and quality control |
| BAIC Off-Road Vehicle | Logistics sorting and box handling deployment |
| Jiangsu Hengtong Group | Industrial application validation |
| Hefei municipal government | City-level deployment of industrial humanoids |
Leju has gone through multiple funding rounds since 2016, ending with a large pre-IPO syndicate round in late 2025 that positioned it as one of the best-capitalized Chinese humanoid robot startups.
| Year | Round | Amount | Notable investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Founder capital | Approximately 2 million yuan plus 30,000 yuan HIT subsidy | Founders themselves |
| 2016 | Angel | 10 million yuan | Songhe Capital |
| 2017 | Pre-Series A | Tens of millions of yuan | Shenzhen Capital Group |
| 2017 | Strategic | 50 million yuan | Tencent |
| June 2019 | Series B | Approximately $36 million | Aplus Capital and others |
| October 22, 2025 | Pre-IPO | Approximately 1.5 billion yuan (~$207 to 210 million) | Greenwoods Asset Management (lead), CITIC Goldstone, Shenzhen Investment Holdings, Shenzhen Longhua Capital, Qianhai Basic Investment, Dongfang Precision, Tuopu Group, China-US Green Fund, Daohe Long-Term, New Alliance Capital, Probing VC, Hefei Industrial Investment, Jiuzhao Investment, continued participation from Tencent and Shenzhen Capital Group |
The October 2025 round was directed at Leju Robot rather than its parent company Suzhou Lean Technology, which Chinese media interpreted as a corporate restructuring step ahead of the planned IPO. Leju filed for IPO tutoring with the Shenzhen Securities Regulatory Bureau on October 30, 2025, with a STAR Market listing as the targeted venue.[10][13]
Leju and its founder have collected several Chinese state and industry recognitions. Leng Xiaokun received the May 4th Medal, awarded annually by the Communist Youth League of China for individuals under 40 across various fields. Leju's humanoids have appeared at high-visibility national events including the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin (February 2025) and the 15th National Games in the Greater Bay Area (November 2025), the latter marking the first time a humanoid robot served as a torchbearer at a major Chinese multi-sport competition.[3][14]
In industry rankings, Leju is regularly cited as one of China's leading humanoid robot startups alongside Unitree Robotics, Fourier Intelligence, UBTech, Agibot, and XPeng Robotics. Chinese tech media have referred to a group of "Seven Little Dragons" in the humanoid sector, with Leju consistently included.[19]