Robotics 'Bodies' Can Be Big Business: Benmo Tech's Pragmatic Path

While most attention in embodied intelligence focuses on the 'brain', another route is quietly scaling up. Data shows that in the first half of 2026, domestic embodied intelligence financing reached approximately 44 billion yuan, with over half flowing to 'brain-focused' companies. However, Benmo Technology, a company specializing in robot 'bodies', grew its revenue from 17.54 million to 282 million yuan in three years, a compound growth rate exceeding 300%. It has passed the HKEX hearing and is heading towards becoming the 'first direct-drive actuator stock'.

Benmo Technology was founded in 2020 by Zhang Di, a student of 'DJI godfather' Li Zexiang. From day one, it bet on a contrarian technical route: integrated direct-drive joints, without reducers. Traditional robot joints rely on reducers to reduce speed and increase torque, at the cost of energy loss, noise, and shortened lifespan. The direct-drive approach eliminates this intermediate transmission, making joints smaller, quieter, and extending lifespan to 50,000-100,000 hours. This choice has been validated by the market: according to Frost & Sullivan, by 2025 revenue, Benmo held a 61.1% share in China's consumer robot direct-drive actuator market, shipping approximately 8.5 million units across dozens of categories including robot vacuums, lawn mowers, and AI companion robots.

But Benmo is not just a component supplier. It also developed a wheel-legged robot business, launching three products: XingTian, TITA, and D1. These are exported to over 50 countries and regions including the EU, North America, Australia, and the Middle East, making Benmo the world's largest wheel-legged robot shipper. The modular design of its latest D1 is representative: two dual-wheel-legged robots can combine or split within three seconds to switch forms based on tasks. For light tasks, they split into two parallel units, and for complex terrains like stairs, they combine—this flexibility translates directly into efficiency in inspection, logistics, and other real scenarios.

Benmo's dual business structure forms a closed loop: mass production of actuators feeds back to robot R&D, while real-world operational data from robots informs joint module iteration. Over the past year, its flexible rapid delivery business has served nearly a thousand robotics companies. In terms of revenue structure, consumer direct-drive actuators remain the mainstay, accounting for 88% of 2025 revenue. But embodied joint modules have entered the supply chain of China's top five embodied intelligence robot manufacturers, and wheel-legged robots have completed thousands of deliveries in inspection and delivery scenarios. Professor Zhang Tao from Tsinghua University noted in a public lecture that embodied intelligence must rely on both a 'strong body' and a 'smart brain'. Benmo's financial data proves that deep cultivation in the body sector can also create a big business. When general models like VLA and WAM mature in the future, they will need reliable bodies to carry them—and that work is already underway.