In May 2023, Peking University researcher Wang He founded a robotics company named "Galaxy General." At that time, embodied AI in China was still a seed in the making. Three years later, this company has cumulatively raised approximately 7 billion RMB in financing, with its valuation surpassing 20 billion RMB, making it the company with the highest financing in China's embodied AI field.
This is not merely a simple story of "technological entrepreneurship"; it resembles more of a multi-layered game revolving around technological narratives, capital strategies, and industry expectations.
Who is at the Helm?
In public accounts, the central figure of Galaxy General is founder and CTO Wang He. He holds a Stanford Ph.D. and is currently a researcher at Peking University, a Boya Young Scholar, and a national-level high-caliber overseas talent. Before entrepreneurship, Wang He had long been deeply involved in the fields of embodied AI and robotic manipulation, making him one of the few founders in this track with both top-tier academic credentials and industrial ambition.
Co-founder Zhang Zhizheng is responsible for the large model direction. He led the construction of the "Galaxy Star Data" ultra-large-scale embodied AI dataset and is also the deputy director of the Beijing Key Laboratory of Embodied AI Large Models.
Notably, there has been a change in the Chairman position.
In July 2026, Galaxy General underwent a management change: 10 management personnel, including former Chairman Guo Xiaoliang, exited, while 9 new members joined, with Yin Fangming taking over as Chairman.
According to public information, Yin Fangming's career spans MediaTek, Sogou, and 360. He founded the robotics company ROOBO, turned to investment after exiting, with his most notable investment being the angel round of Unitree.
This personnel arrangement itself is a signal—Galaxy General is transitioning from a "founder-driven" structure to a "capital + industry" hybrid governance model.
The academic committee is led by Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Gao Wen, with members covering top-tier scholars in China's embodied AI field such as Zhang Jianwei, Zeng Wenjun, Wang Tianmiao, and Chen Baoquan. This lineup carries substantial weight at the academic level.
Product Strategy: Prioritize the Brain, Lightweight Body
Galaxy General has chosen a route distinctly different from Unitree's—"Prioritize the Brain, Lightweight Body."
The company's technological core is its self-developed end-to-end embodied large model, "Galaxy Star Brain" (AstraBrain), constructing a complete closed loop of "Brain—Cerebellum—Neural Control."
At the cognitive level, it launched the world's first general-purpose brain base model, AstraBrain WAM 0.5, unifying the Vision-Language-Action and World Model pathways. At the motion control level, AstraBrain-WBC 0.5 reached the scale of GPT-1, for the first time validating the Scaling Law in the field of motion control.
In March 2026, the team achieved the world's first instance of a humanoid robot playing tennis autonomously—the robot could autonomously complete ball recognition, trajectory prediction, full-body balance control, and continuous hitting. Elon Musk called it the "AlphaGo moment for embodied AI."
At the hardware level, Galaxy General is not fixated on developing the robot body from scratch, but instead uses mature hardware solutions from companies like Unitree as carriers.
In 2025, Galaxy General contributed over 18 million RMB in sales to Unitree.
The advantage of this strategy is concentrating resources on algorithms and data, avoiding the long cycles of hardware R&D that can hinder iteration speed. The trade-off is the lack of proprietary barriers at the hardware body level, with core competitiveness highly dependent on the actual generalization capabilities of the large models.
Galaxy's current product line includes three models: the heavy-duty industrial robot Galbot S1 (priced around 1.05 million RMB on JD.com), the wheeled dual-arm robot for general services Galbot G1 (around 700,000 RMB), and the bipedal robot for home scenarios "Galaxy Star Kid" ET1 (in pre-sale stage) released in August 2026.
Among these, the G1 appeared on the stage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2026, partnering with Shen Teng and Ma Li, and overnight became the "Spring Festival Gala Robot."
In terms of commercial deployment, the S1 has entered CATL's battery factory achieving 7×24 hours of normalized operation. The G1 is being deployed in retail, pharmacy, and medical scenarios, with "Galaxy Space Capsule" convenience stores having landed in over 40 cities with more than 170 outlets. Furthermore, Galaxy General signed a global strategic cooperation agreement with Ningjia Service, a subsidiary of CATL, where its 1300+ service stations will undertake the installation, deployment, operation, maintenance, and repair of Galaxy General's robots.
Financing Journey: A "Relay Race" from VC to State Capital
The financing journey of Galaxy General itself serves as a microcosm of the capital evolution in the embodied AI track.
June 2023, Seed Round—tens of millions of RMB, with two market-oriented institutions, Matrix Partners China and Lanchi Ventures, joining. This represents the most classic early-stage VC logic: betting on founder background and technical direction.
June 2024, Angel Round—700 million RMB, with the investor lineup expanding dramatically. Nine market-oriented institutions including IDG Capital, SEE Fund, Lighthouse Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Guoxiang Capital, Source Code Capital, and Yanyuan Capital joined. Simultaneously, three industrial strategic investors—Meituan, iFlytek Capital, and BAIC Group's industrial investment arm—participated, along with Zhongguancun Development Group as the first state-owned capital entity. The 700 million scale was already at the top tier in the robotics sector at the time.
November 2024, Strategic Investment—500 million RMB, with 22 investors rushing in. The key change in this round was the concentrated entry of state-owned capital: eight state-owned institutions including Shenzhen Capital Group, Zhongguancun Science City, China Internet Investment Fund, Jing Guorui, Lingang Science & Technology Venture Capital, Port Investment Company, Shougang Fund, and Shunxi Fund entered. Coupled with industrial strategic investors like CCB International, CMBI, and JL Mag Rare-Earth, along with existing shareholders continuing to invest, state-owned and quasi-state-owned investors already constituted over half of the investor composition in this round.
June 2025, Series B—1.1 billion RMB. CATL and GGV Capital joined, with Jing Guorui and CDB Capital continuing to invest. CATL's first-time entry was particularly crucial—it not only acted as a financial investor but also directly brought thousand-unit level robot orders and subsequent global after-sales service cooperation.
December 2025, Series B+—over 300 million USD (approximately 2.1 billion RMB). China Mobile, CICC Capital, CCTV Media Convergence Industry Fund, Tianqi Shares, and Suzhou Venture Capital entered. The leading role of central and state-owned enterprises and national-level funds further increased.
March 2026, Series B++—2.5 billion RMB. Nine investors including the National AI Industry Investment Fund, Sinopec Capital, CITIC Group, Bank of China, SAIC Motor, and SMIC Capital participated. State-owned capital and central state-owned enterprises dominated this round—five state-owned funds (National AI Industry Fund, National Integrated Circuit Industry Fund, Yizhuang State-Owned Capital Operation, Chengdu Science and Technology Innovation Investment Group, Wuxi Venture Capital), plus four central state-owned enterprises/industrial strategic investors.
34 months, 6 financing rounds, cumulatively approximately 7 billion RMB. After deduplication across all rounds, there are about 47 investors: around 15 market-oriented institutions, around 17 state-owned/government-guided funds, and around 15 industrial strategic investors/CVCs.
From being led by early-stage market-oriented VCs, to a massive influx of state-owned capital in the mid-phase, to recent national-level industry funds and central state-owned enterprises becoming the main force—this path clearly reflects the evolving judgment of the capital market on China's embodied AI track: from a "technological direction worth betting on" to a "strategic high ground that needs to be captured."
Cold Reflection: Amid Confidence, Where Lie the Concerns?
First, high-frequency financing implies sustained pressure to deliver.
With an average of less than six months between financing rounds, each round requires delivering new milestones to support the valuation leap. From the team and direction in the seed round, to the product prototype in the angel round, to industrial customers in the strategic round, and on to the national-level laboratory in the Series B round—Galaxy General has indeed managed to have a "new story to tell" for each round.
But after the stories are told, the next question to answer is even more brutal: can revenue scale match a valuation exceeding 20 billion RMB?
Second, the "state-ownership" shift in the investor structure is a double-edged sword.
The substantial entry of state-owned capital provides Galaxy General with credit endorsements, scenario resources (such as order synergy from CATL and China Mobile), and policy support.
However, state-owned capital's requirements for exit certainty, asset security, and audit compliance will also impose constraints on corporate governance and strategic choices. More importantly, when a company's financing body shifts from being dominated by "market-oriented VC investment" to "state-owned capital + national-level funds," the valuation logic has already begun to change—from "venture capital return expectations" to "national strategic asset allocation." The convergence of these two valuation systems will face tests when the company goes public in the future.
Third, the "investment-driven order" model of industrial capital needs validation.
The entry of industrial strategic investors like CATL, SAIC, China Mobile, and Sinopec could theoretically bring orders and customers to Galaxy General.
However, currently verifiable, scaled commercial revenue remains limited—the G1 sells for about 700,000 RMB, the S1 for about 1.05 million RMB. Even with cumulative deliveries in the hundreds of units, the multiple relationship with the 20 billion RMB valuation remains staggering.
Whether industrial capital investment truly translates into sustainable commercial revenue, rather than merely serving as a valuation endorsement, is a point requiring continuous tracking.
Fourth, industry controversy has already emerged.
On September 10, 2026, Shao Tianlan, founder of Hong Kong-listed company Mech-Mind, publicly questioned the business models of some embodied AI companies on his WeChat Moments, stating that some "high-profile, high-valuation companies that appeared on the Spring Festival Gala" create revenue through methods like "data collection centers" and related-party transactions, and promote IPOs with the help of local governments and state-owned capital investments, directly pointing to Galaxy General.
Galaxy General subsequently issued a statement in response, emphasizing the company's adherence to genuine R&D, real scenarios, and authentic commercial closed loops. The merits of this controversy await the test of time, but it reflects an industry-wide issue: when embodied AI moves from high valuations in the primary market to public scrutiny in the secondary market, commercialization capability will become the watershed.
Galaxy General is not an isolated case; it is a typical sample of the capital frenzy in China's embodied AI track from 2023 to 2026. The pace of raising 7 billion RMB in 34 months reflects not just market recognition of this particular company, but the overheated state of the entire track driven jointly by policy expectations, technological narratives, and capital momentum. When the fever subsides and commercialization becomes the hard metric, those who can truly stand firm will find the answer not in financing rounds, but in every real operation on production lines, in pharmacies, and in convenience stores.
This article is from WeChat public account: IT Juzi , Author: Judy, Original Title: "Galaxy General: 34 Months Since Establishment, 6 Rounds of Financing Totaling 7 Billion—The Confidence and Concerns of the 'Capital Harvester' in the Embodied AI Track"
