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| Robotera | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Full name | Beijing Robot Era Technology Co., Ltd. |
| Chinese name | 星动纪元 (Xingdong Jiyuan) |
| Founded | August 2023 |
| Founder | Chen Jianyu |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
| Industry | Robotics, Embodied AI |
| Products | Star1, L7, Q5, XHAND1 |
| Total funding | ~$267 million |
| Valuation | ~$1.45 billion (2026) |
| Website | robotera.com |
Robotera (formally Beijing Robot Era Technology Co., Ltd.; Chinese: 星动纪元) is a Chinese robotics company headquartered in Beijing that develops full-stack technology for humanoid robots, including proprietary hardware (actuators, dexterous hands, full-body platforms), the ERA-42 foundation model for embodied intelligence, and application software for commercial deployment. Founded in August 2023, the company was incubated by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) at Tsinghua University and is the sole humanoid robotics company in which Tsinghua University holds equity.[1][2]
Robotera was established in August 2023 by Chen Jianyu, an assistant professor and doctoral supervisor at Tsinghua University's IIIS, where he works within the research team of Academician Yao Qizhi (Andrew Yao), a Turing Award laureate. Chen holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where he studied under Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He has published more than 50 papers at leading venues including NeurIPS, ICML, ICRA, and IROS, and was named to Forbes China's "30 Under 30" list.[1][2]
The core team draws from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley, the National University of Singapore, and Fortune 500 companies. Over 80% of employees work in research and development.[2]
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| August 2023 | Company founded; early prototype "Xiaoxing" debuts at World Robot Conference |
| May 2024 | Xiaoxing Max becomes first humanoid to walk the Great Wall of China |
| August 2024 | Star1 launched as first product-grade humanoid; XHAND1 hand debuts |
| October 2024 | Star1 sets world bipedal speed record at 3.6 m/s in Gobi Desert |
| Mid-2025 | Star1 demonstrates chopstick manipulation and cooking |
| July 2025 | Q5 wheeled service robot launched |
| August 2025 | L7 unveiled with 4 m/s top speed |
Robotera has raised approximately $267 million across multiple rounds, reaching a valuation exceeding 10 billion RMB (~$1.45 billion) by early 2026.
| Round | Date | Amount | Lead investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angel | January 2024 | ~$13.9 million | Undisclosed |
| Pre-Series A | October 2024 | ~$42 million | Undisclosed |
| Series A | July 2025 | ~$69 million | CDH Investments, Haier Capital |
| Series A+ | November 2025 | ~$140 million | Geely Capital |
The participation of major automotive groups like Geely and BAIC reflects strong interest from China's vehicle manufacturers in humanoid robotics for factory automation.[3][4]
| Product | Type | Key features |
|---|---|---|
| Star1 | Bipedal humanoid | 55 DOF, 3.6 m/s speed, XHAND1 hands, 275 TOPS AI |
| L7 | Bipedal humanoid (next-gen) | 55 DOF, 4 m/s speed, enhanced upper body |
| Q5 | Wheeled service humanoid | 44 DOF, 11-DOF hands, 37-language support |
| XHAND1 | Standalone dexterous hand | 12 active DOF per hand, full direct drive, tactile sensing |
The Star1 is Robotera's first product-grade humanoid, standing 171 cm tall and weighing 63 kg with 55 degrees of freedom. It set a world record for the fastest bipedal humanoid at 3.6 m/s (12.9 km/h) and was the first humanoid to demonstrate chopstick manipulation.[5][6]
Robotera's proprietary ERA-42 is an end-to-end embodied intelligence model that serves as a vision-language-action (VLA) model, merging visual, proprioceptive, and language data for autonomous task sequencing. It can learn new tasks in hours using minimal demonstration data.[7]
Robotera reports industrial clients including Samsung, Geely, Renault, Lenovo, Haier, and TCL. The company shipped over 200 humanoid robots in 2025 and reported over 500 total units by the end of that year, with approximately 50% going to overseas customers.[2]