EngineAI raises $139M after PM01 performs world's first all-electric humanoid front flip

EngineAI raised $139 million in July 2025, backed by XPENG and CATL Capital, after its PM01 humanoid robot performed what the company described as the first all-electric front flip by a humanoid. The round followed a year of rapid product development and marked a clear shift from an early-stage Shenzhen startup into a funded competitor in China's increasingly crowded humanoid field.

The founder

Zhao Tongyang founded Dogotix in 2016, pioneering humanoid robot research in China, then launched a quadruped robot in 2020 that gained significant commercial traction globally. He subsequently co-founded XPENG Robotics and led the development of PX5, a humanoid that drew attention at NVIDIA GTC 2024. After the PX5 programme, Zhao left XPENG Robotics in early 2023 to start EngineAI, securing approximately 100 million yuan, roughly $13.6 million, in angel funding and unveiling the SE01 humanoid in October 2024. Zhao built XPENG's humanoid programme, departed to found a competitor, and then had XPENG invest in the company he built after leaving. CATL Capital's participation reflects the energy storage giant's interest in extended robot runtime and power architecture, which are direct constraints on commercial humanoid deployment.

The technology

EngineAI's core technical thesis is natural human gait. The SE01 achieves its gait through an end-to-end neural network combining reinforcement learning and imitation learning, designed to produce long-stride upright walking rather than the shuffling small steps common in earlier humanoids. The robot stands 170 centimetres tall, weighs approximately 55 kilograms, and has 32 degrees of freedom with self-developed harmonic, planetary, and ball-screw joint modules. Its knee joint produces 186 N·m of peak torque.

A front flip requires the robot to leave the ground, rotate completely, and absorb landing force across a short time window; it demands peak torque, precise timing, and robust landing control that ground-contact tasks do not. Demonstrating it on an all-electric platform, without hydraulic actuators, directly validated the joint modules and control architecture EngineAI had been developing since the SE01 programme.

Products

EngineAI's lineup at CES 2025 comprised three platforms: SE01, the full-size industrial humanoid; SA01, an open-source research and education robot; and PM01, a lighter, more dynamic general-purpose platform. The SE01 and PM01 each run dual-processor compute combining NVIDIA Jetson Orin with Intel chips, supporting cross-platform algorithm deployment across ROS, ONNX, and NVIDIA Isaac. The SA01 is priced at $5,400 and is designed for research institutions and educational programmes; the PM01 launched at approximately $12,000 in commercial and educational editions.

The SE01 appeared on CCTV's Setting Sail 2025 New Year's Gala, and PM01 units have been documented in public Shenzhen deployments including assisted police patrol roles and stage performances.

Maturity

EngineAI targeted production and sales of over 1,000 units in 2025; no production figures or revenue have been independently confirmed. HongShan and JD.com are among the investors in the company alongside XPENG and CATL Capital. The company has not disclosed named industrial customers or deployment volumes beyond public demonstration settings. The $139M round and the XPENG and CATL backing give EngineAI the capital to scale production, but industrial deployment evidence remains to be disclosed.

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