D-Robotics' $400 Million Series C: What 8 Million Chips Say About the Robot Chip Business
Why it matters: where a robot chip company's money actually comes from matters more than how much it raised.
By Embodied AI Frontier
On Sept. 17, D-Robotics said it raised $400 million in a Series C round led by Mirae Asset of South Korea, its third round this year. The company does not build robots. It sells the chips that go inside them. The announcement carried three numbers: $400 million raised, 8 million chips shipped to date, and coverage of more than 50% of customers in embodied AI. The three numbers describe the same business, yet they point in different directions. The announcement does not say which machines took those 8 million chips, or how the 50% was calculated.
Article structure
- 1. $400 Million: A Third Round This Year, No Valuation Disclosed
- 2. 8 Million Chips: Where They Went
- 3. "Over 50% Coverage": One Metric, Three Versions
- 4. Spun Out of Horizon Robotics: Engineering Lineage and Product Boundaries
- 5. Conclusion: Revenue Structure and Three Metrics to Watch
1. $400 Million: A Third Round This Year, No Valuation Disclosed
On Sept. 17, D-Robotics announced a $400 million Series C. The round was led by Mirae Asset, a South Korean financial group with operations in asset management, investment banking and life insurance, and the parent of the U.S. ETF provider Global X. The size of the round and the name of the lead investor were made public. Two other items were not: the company's valuation and its revenue target for the year.
The co-investor list is long, and it splits into three groups. The first is local government investment vehicles: Hefei Guotou, Nanshan Zhanxintou and Jingquan Capital, funds tied to the municipal and district governments of Hefei and of Shenzhen's Nanshan district. The second is corporate capital: Meituan's strategic investment arm, part of the same group as Meituan Longzhu, a Meituan-affiliated fund already on the shareholder list. The third is financial institutions: Cathay Capital, Huamei International Investment Group, GF Xinde, Beyond Moore Fund, and Xinchip II, a fund managed by Qihang Investment. Returning shareholders added to their positions: GL Ventures, 5Y Capital, Linear Capital, Huangpu River Capital, Vertex Growth (a growth fund of Singapore state investor Temasek), Prosperity7, Hermitage Capital and Yunfeng Capital1D-Robotics Completes a $400 Million Series C as Commercialization AcceleratesView the entry below →2D-Robotics Completes a $400 Million Series C, Total Funding Tops $770 MillionView the entry below →3Customer Coverage in Embodied AI Tops 50% as D-Robotics Raises Another $400 MillionView the entry below →.
This is the third round the company has closed this year. It raised $120 million in a B1 round in March6Embodied AI Stays Hot as D-Robotics Closes a $120 Million RoundView the entry below →, then $150 million in B2 in early April, bringing the B rounds to $270 million. Before that came a $100 million Series A round in May 20252D-Robotics Completes a $400 Million Series C, Total Funding Tops $770 MillionView the entry below →. With the $400 million now added, disclosed funding comes to just over $770 million, and more than half of that total was raised in this single round. This year's three rounds alone add up to $670 million, roughly 6.7 times the A round of last year.
The pace matters more than the amounts. Ten months passed between the A round and B1. B1 and B2 were only a little over two weeks apart. Five months passed between B2 and the C round, and the size of a single round jumped from $100 million to $400 million. The gap between rounds is shrinking while each round grows.
What was left out of the announcement are two numbers that usually anchor this kind of story: the valuation and the revenue target. Reports noted explicitly that the company did not disclose its valuation7Exclusive: After 8 Million Chips Shipped, D-Robotics' Wang Cong Raises Another RMB 3 BillionView the entry below →. Dealroom, a funding database, offers a substitute marker: this is the largest Series C in Chinese robotics in four years, ranking in the top 1% of 52 comparable deals by size5D-Robotics lands $400M Series C, the largest China robotics round in four yearsView the entry below →.
Backing a two-year-old company that was spun out of its parent with $400 million says something on its own, and the composition of the investor list is part of that signal. Meituan-affiliated funds have invested in consecutive rounds this year, with Meituan Longzhu also among the returning shareholders2D-Robotics Completes a $400 Million Series C, Total Funding Tops $770 MillionView the entry below →. Hefei Guotou and Nanshan Zhanxintou tie the round to industrial capital from Hefei and from Shenzhen's Nanshan district1D-Robotics Completes a $400 Million Series C as Commercialization AcceleratesView the entry below →, and the company is headquartered in Shenzhen17QichachaView the entry below →.
Zoom out and the round is not an isolated case. Forbes China, citing an incomplete tally by the data provider ITjuzi, puts Chinese embodied AI funding at RMB 93.5 billion (about $13 billion) in the first half of 2026, roughly five times the level a year earlier, across 322 deals, up 137% year over year4Capital Keeps Betting on Embodied AI: D-Robotics Lands a $400 Million Series C as Paxini Passes RMB 4 BillionView the entry below →. Money is not scarce. What is scarce is companies that can absorb a large check, and capital is concentrating in the leaders of this field as it is elsewhere. ChinaVenture reported in April that investors described D-Robotics allocations as hard to obtain10D-Robotics Raised RMB 2 Billion, and I Talked With Wang Cong for Two HoursView the entry below →.
So the $400 million most likely buys a position rather than a claim on the company's revenue from the past two years.
2. 8 Million Chips: Where They Went
For a chip company, two questions usually matter most: how much has it sold, and to whom.
Start with the volume. Cumulative shipments of the Sunrise chip family have grown from 5 million units to 8 million. These are cumulative figures, not annual sales. The reporting has shifted as well. In April 2026, the 5 million mark was described as the level reached by the end of 20249RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →. By mid-2025, the company said shipments had already passed 5 million11A Conversation With D-Robotics' Wang Cong: The Industry's Knockout Stage Has Not StartedView the entry below →. The current announcement says the figure has passed 8 million3Customer Coverage in Embodied AI Tops 50% as D-Robotics Raises Another $400 MillionView the entry below →16$400 Million: D-Robotics' Series C Lands as Sunrise Chip Shipments Pass 8 MillionView the entry below →18D-Robotics Completes $400 Million in Series C Funding, Driving the Robotics Industry Into a Boom in Product CategoriesView the entry below →. The company's own framing is growth in the millions each year11A Conversation With D-Robotics' Wang Cong: The Industry's Knockout Stage Has Not StartedView the entry below →.
What makes up those 8 million units has not been disclosed. The product lines and the customer list are public, though, and they outline the answer.
D-Robotics sells two chip families. The Sunrise X series targets general-purpose robots and consumer products. The S series targets embodied AI, the field that puts AI models into machines that move and act in the physical world. Within the X series, the Sunrise 3 (X3) and Sunrise 5 (X5) are in high-volume production, with 5 TOPS and 10 TOPS of computing power respectively. TOPS measures how much computation a chip can perform per second, so a larger number means more work done at once. The main product in the S series is the Sunrise S600, launched in November 2025, with a peak INT8 performance of 560 TOPS9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →18D-Robotics Completes $400 Million in Series C Funding, Driving the Robotics Industry Into a Boom in Product CategoriesView the entry below →. That is 56 times the X5. Across both families the line spans 5 TOPS to 560 TOPS and supports more than a hundred robot form factors9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →.
The company has been clear about where the volume sits. In June 2025, founder and CEO Wang Cong said that by revenue share, chips are the core business and that consumer electronics accounts for the main scenarios and customers11A Conversation With D-Robotics' Wang Cong: The Industry's Knockout Stage Has Not StartedView the entry below →. Before founding D-Robotics, Wang ran Horizon Robotics' AIoT and robotics division and led the team out of the parent company in 2024, a history Section 4 returns to. Among the high-volume X series customers are Ecovacs, Narwal and Insta3609RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →, names that correspond to robot vacuum cleaners, floor-washing robots and panoramic cameras, products many households or travel bags already contain. By April 2026, Wang put it more directly: mature consumer electronics such as robot vacuums contribute the larger share of revenue, while orders from the humanoid robotics field are climbing steadily, with high unit prices and real potential but no scale yet9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →.
On the embodied AI side, the announcement describes the business as having "entered volume-level shipment"3Customer Coverage in Embodied AI Tops 50% as D-Robotics Raises Another $400 MillionView the entry below →. The evidence behind that phrase is customer adoption of the Sunrise S600. Launched in November 2025, the chip had been adopted by more than 20 leading customers by July 2026, among them TARS, Spirit AI, X Square Robot, BeingBeyond, UBTECH, PaXini Tech, the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center and Humanoid Robot (Shanghai) Co.2D-Robotics Completes a $400 Million Series C, Total Funding Tops $770 MillionView the entry below →13Sunrise S600 Wins Recognition From More Than 20 Leading Customers and Enters Volume ValidationView the entry below →. UBTECH is a humanoid robot maker listed in Hong Kong. The Beijing and Shanghai centers are humanoid robotics platforms backed by the two municipal governments. The rest are startups building embodied AI systems and core components.
One line of business is easy to overlook: the RDK, short for Robotics Developer Kit. The RDK X5 has 10 TOPS of computing power and sells for RMB 549 (about $76) in its 4GB version and RMB 699 (about $97) in its 8GB version. The RDK S100, aimed at embodied AI, runs in the 100 TOPS class9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →. Revenue from these boards is limited. Their role is closer to a gateway, selling chips to developers and small teams that cannot afford a complete system.
Partnerships keep accumulating. In July 2026, GigaDevice, a Chinese chip design company whose products include memory chips and microcontrollers, announced a strategic partnership built on its GD32 microcontroller and the Sunrise S60015GigaDevice and D-Robotics Form a Strategic Partnership Based on the GD32 MCU and the Sunrise S600View the entry below →. A microcontroller is the small control chip inside a robot. In September, D-Robotics partnered with GigaAI, a developer of embodied foundation models, to adapt its world model and GigaBrain-0.7 to the Sunrise S600 platform, with the goal of running embodied AI locally on a device and delivering an affordable software-and-hardware package14D-Robotics Partners With GigaAI to Put a World Model on an Edge ChipView the entry below →. The partnerships point in one direction: D-Robotics is betting on a general-purpose base and keeping its distance from any particular robot design.
Put the two sets of facts side by side and the weight of the 8 million figure becomes clear. The bulk comes from consumer categories already at scale. The embodied AI portion has only just entered mass-production validation. The company gave no breakdown by category and no absolute revenue figure, only the relative statement that revenue in the first half of 2026 grew several times over the same period last year3Customer Coverage in Embodied AI Tops 50% as D-Robotics Raises Another $400 MillionView the entry below →. For comparison, shipments in 2025 rose 180% and the customer count rose 200%, figures published by the parent company, Horizon Robotics, a leading Chinese maker of assisted-driving chips8D-Robotics Raises Another $150 Million, Bringing Its B Rounds to $270 Million, to Accelerate Global ExpansionView the entry below →.
3. "Over 50% Coverage": One Metric, Three Versions
The number in the announcement most likely to be read as proof of growth is the claim of "customer coverage in embodied AI exceeding 50%"3Customer Coverage in Embodied AI Tops 50% as D-Robotics Raises Another $400 MillionView the entry below →. Multiple outlets repeated the sentence, and none of them explained the denominator, meaning how many companies there are in total and how many of them D-Robotics counts3Customer Coverage in Embodied AI Tops 50% as D-Robotics Raises Another $400 MillionView the entry below →.
Line up the same company's public statements in chronological order and three versions appear.
In June 2025, when D-Robotics launched an integrated computing and control development kit, its language was that it had partnered with more than 20 leading embodied AI companies, while more than 50 customers had begun testing the RDK S10012Integrated Computing and Control Robot Development Kit Launched in ShenzhenView the entry below →. The reference point then was the number of partners, not market share.
In April 2026, the tech outlet Zhidx reported on the B2 round with a different scorecard: coverage of 70% of embodied AI companies, alongside more than 400 robotics customers and more than 100,000 developers9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →. Seventy percent, again with no denominator.
In September 2026, the figure became "customer coverage exceeding 50%".
Over 15 months, the same metric has appeared as both 70% and 50%, and neither version states what is being counted. It could be a share of customers by number, penetration among leading companies, or the weight of embodied AI customers within the total customer base. All three methods can produce 50%, and they mean very different things.
The point is not to dismiss the number. There is no universal register of embodied AI companies, so no authoritative denominator exists, and no company can offer a figure that an outside auditor could check. A more reliable way to judge progress is to switch to metrics that can be named: the more than 20 named customers for the Sunrise S6002D-Robotics Completes a $400 Million Series C, Total Funding Tops $770 MillionView the entry below →, the 200% growth in customer numbers8D-Robotics Raises Another $150 Million, Bringing Its B Rounds to $270 Million, to Accelerate Global ExpansionView the entry below →, and whether the three new chips the company plans to launch this year arrive on schedule9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →.
This site ran into the same problem in "Is China Actually Using Humanoid Robots in Its Factories?": a partnership a company announces and a deployment that has been validated leave a gap between them.
Coverage language also has a clear function in fundraising. It converts shipments of consumer-grade chips into penetration of embodied AI, which lets a chip company with a consumer-electronics revenue base be discussed inside embodied AI valuation frameworks.
4. Spun Out of Horizon Robotics: Engineering Lineage and Product Boundaries
D-Robotics became an independent company in January 2024, spun out of Horizon Robotics' robotics division. Shenzhen D-Robotics Co. was incorporated on Jan. 16, 2024, wholly owned by D-Robotics Holding Limited17QichachaView the entry below →, with Horizon Robotics (09660.HK) as controlling shareholder20Horizon Robotics' Robotics Subsidiary Closes a $100 Million Round as the Auto Supply Chain Opens a New TrackView the entry below →. Horizon Robotics is a leading Chinese maker of assisted-driving chips. In 2025 it reported RMB 3.76 billion (about $520 million) in revenue, up 57.7% year over year, with RMB 2.43 billion (about $340 million) in gross profit and a 64.5% gross margin21Horizon Robotics Posts RMB 3.76 Billion in 2025 Revenue, Matching Huawei's Share in Advanced Assisted DrivingView the entry below →, the kind of margin structure chip businesses tend to have. Wang Cong, the founder and CEO of D-Robotics, previously ran the AIoT and robotics division at Horizon Robotics11A Conversation With D-Robotics' Wang Cong: The Industry's Knockout Stage Has Not StartedView the entry below →.
That lineage explains why the capital markets were willing to hand $400 million to a two-year-old company. What D-Robotics took with it was an established chip engineering team. It reuses Horizon Robotics' in-house BPU computing architecture, and it carried over chip, algorithm and robotics talent as a package. The team numbered 60 to 70 people at the spin-off and more than 200 two years later9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →.
The collaboration shows up in specific products. In November 2025, Horizon Robotics released two open-source foundation models for embodied AI: HoloMotion for lower-level motor control and HoloBrain for higher-level reasoning. In February 2026, it open-sourced the HoloBrain-0 model and framework8D-Robotics Raises Another $150 Million, Bringing Its B Rounds to $270 Million, to Accelerate Global ExpansionView the entry below →. The D-Robotics RDK S600 works natively with both models and supports "one brain, many bodies", meaning a single model stack adapted to different robots8D-Robotics Raises Another $150 Million, Bringing Its B Rounds to $270 Million, to Accelerate Global ExpansionView the entry below →. The company describes the two sides as important strategic partners, with D-Robotics as a Horizon-incubated business3Customer Coverage in Embodied AI Tops 50% as D-Robotics Raises Another $400 MillionView the entry below →19D-Robotics Forms a Strategic Partnership to Advance Robot IntelligenceView the entry below →.
The split is just as clear. Horizon Robotics focuses on automotive chips and assisted driving. D-Robotics focuses on the robotics software and hardware base, and the product boundaries do not overlap. Its positioning for customers comes down to two rules: chips only, no complete systems, and general-purpose needs only, no custom projects9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →.
Wang has also spoken about the competitive position. In an April interview he acknowledged that, compared with NVIDIA and Qualcomm, D-Robotics still trails in chip design precision, software ecosystem and brand influence, and that its core advantage is focus9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →. In the same conversation he offered an industry judgment: in general-purpose computing there is usually room for a first and a second, rarely for a third, a consequence of how the semiconductor industry works10D-Robotics Raised RMB 2 Billion, and I Talked With Wang Cong for Two HoursView the entry below →. The path he chose for D-Robotics is to take one step at a time10D-Robotics Raised RMB 2 Billion, and I Talked With Wang Cong for Two HoursView the entry below →.
This site's company directory covers more than 200 companies across the robotics supply chain. Computing and chips were rarely discussed as a category of their own until now, and D-Robotics is the largest fundraiser on that line.
5. Conclusion: Revenue Structure and Three Metrics to Watch
Back to the opening question: of those 8 million chips, how many went to embodied AI? The company did not answer.
The disclosed information points one way. Revenue from this chip line comes mainly from consumer categories already at scale, and the embodied AI portion has only just entered mass-production validation. What the $400 million buys is closer to a position, namely a shot at becoming the default option for computing in embodied AI. That position cannot be valued from this year's revenue, and this site examined the same gap in "After Unitree Halved from Its Peak: The Anchor Holds, the Bubble Is Gone": capital sets a price first, and numbers have to follow.
Three findings can be checked. First, the revenue base still sits in older categories, where mature scenarios such as robot vacuums and robot mowers contribute the larger share of revenue. Second, customer coverage is a company figure, and the same metric has appeared as two different numbers over 15 months, both without a disclosed denominator. Third, the Horizon Robotics lineage gives D-Robotics a higher starting point in chip engineering and customer trust, which is what most clearly separates it from other robot chip startups.
Looking ahead, three areas are worth watching.
First, disclosure by category. How the 8 million units break down, and how much of customer revenue the Sunrise S600 accounts for, remain unpublished. If the company starts reporting category-level figures, that will signal that revenue from embodied AI has grown large enough to describe on its own.
Second, the cadence of new chips. The company plans to launch three chips this year built on China's most advanced process technology, among them the Sunrise 7 (X7)9RMB 1 Billion, the Largest Robot Chip Financing of the YearView the entry below →. Semiconductors demand heavy, long-cycle investment, and consumer volume is what funds the research and development. Wang's answer to that is direct: for investors focused on short-term profitability, D-Robotics is not the best candidate10D-Robotics Raised RMB 2 Billion, and I Talked With Wang Cong for Two HoursView the entry below →.
Third, demand for computing power will be pulled from both ends. NVIDIA and Qualcomm are moving down from general-purpose computing, while robot makers may take chip design in-house. D-Robotics is responding by thickening its developer ecosystem: more than 100,000 developers worldwide, spanning more than 20 countries and regions across Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, plus more than 60 ecosystem partners8D-Robotics Raises Another $150 Million, Bringing Its B Rounds to $270 Million, to Accelerate Global ExpansionView the entry below →.
Whether the shovel seller makes money does not depend on which prospector wins. It depends on whether the digging continues. Those 8 million chips went to machines already shipping today, machines that do not need embodied AI to take off. That is most likely what the $400 million actually bought.
Sources
Funding and valuation
Company operations and products
Parent company and industry benchmarks
Exchange rate approximations: RMB 7.2 per USD, used for rough conversions only.
Transliterations pending official English names: Hefei Guotou, Nanshan Zhanxintou, Jingquan Capital, Huamei International Investment Group, Qihang Investment, Huangpu River Capital.