Deep Robotics raises $70M Series C as it extends from quadrupeds into humanoids

Deep Robotics has closed a Series C round exceeding RMB 500 million, approximately $70 million, led by CMB International and ChinaAMC, with strategic participation from funds affiliated with China Telecom and China Unicom. The round followed the company's shareholding reform, a structural step widely associated with pre-IPO preparation in Chinese markets.

The founders

Deep Robotics was founded in 2017 in Hangzhou by Zhu Qiuguo and Li Chao, both doctorate graduates from Zhejiang University. After completing their doctorates in 2011, Zhu served as an associate professor at the university before deciding to start the company after observing Boston Dynamics' progress in dynamic legged locomotion. The name Jueying, used across the company's quadruped product line, comes from Cao Cao's legendary horse , fast, powerful, and built for difficult terrain. The academic starting point is relevant; Deep Robotics' core locomotion algorithms were built from the same research tradition that produced much of the field's foundational work on legged robot control.

The quadruped business

Deep Robotics covers 34 provincial administrative regions across China and 44 countries internationally. Its deployments span power inspection, emergency response, security patrol, industrial maintenance, and education. The Jueying X30, launched in October 2023, was the first quadruped rated for operation from -20°C to 55°C, directly targeting environments that exclude most wheeled alternatives. In the NEOM megaproject in Saudi Arabia, the X30 established the country's first fully automated outdoor inspection system in an extreme beach environment. Singapore Power Group uses X30 for power tunnel inspection. In Yiwu International Trade City, the world's largest wholesale market, an X30 operates as a continuous security and fire-hazard platform. In North America, Deep Robotics robots have been deployed in warehouse security alongside HawkRobo's platform. In approximately 30 substations under China Southern Power Grid, Deep Robotics claims a 70% reduction in operational costs.

That deployment base matters for what comes next. Deep Robotics is approaching them as a company with verified commercial quadruped revenue across utility, security, and industrial sectors in multiple countries.

The transition

In November 2024, Deep Robotics unveiled Lynx, a wheel-legged quadruped that switches between wheeled and legged locomotion modes. The 33-kilogram platform can climb 80-centimetre obstacles and navigate at up to 4 metres per second, bridging the speed of wheeled platforms with the terrain capability of legged ones. The same month, it launched DR01, its first humanoid, demonstrated at the 2024 World Robot Conference in Beijing. DR02, the second-generation humanoid, carries an IP66 rating for all-weather operation and is paired with DeepVLA 1.0, a vision-language navigation model allowing robots to receive natural language instructions and navigate across multi-floor environments.

Li Chao said at the October 2025 Bund Summit that Deep Robotics faces a severe talent shortage in algorithm development for humanoid fine-tuning, and that the company must make its humanoid products not only usable but reliable in industrial scenarios. The admission is more informative than a standard progress claim; it locates exactly where the gap between the quadruped business and humanoid ambition currently sits.

The infrastructure bet

China Telecom and China Unicom are not conventional venture investors. Their participation brings 5G connectivity and edge computing infrastructure relevant to coordinating robot fleets across industrial sites at scale. The involvement aligns with DeepVLA 1.0's multi-floor navigation ambitions; a language-commanded inspection robot operating across a large industrial facility requires reliable connectivity and compute at the edge, not only onboard intelligence. The two telecoms together cover most of China's industrial digital infrastructure, making their investment a potential deployment network as much as a capital contribution.

Maturity

The quadruped line is commercially deployed across four continents with named customers and disclosed operational claims. DR02 is pre-commercial; no customer deployments, production volumes, or pricing for the humanoid line have been disclosed. The Series C capital is directed at talent acquisition for humanoid algorithm development, international expansion, and product iteration. The shareholding reform signals IPO preparation; no filing or exchange has been announced.

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