A nearly $100 million angel round has been directed at Striding AI, marking Yao Song's third entrepreneurial venture focused on embodied intelligence.

On June 23rd, the embodied intelligence company Striding AI announced the completion of a nearly $100 million angel series funding round. Investors include several listed companies such as Charoen Pokphand Group, Huaqin Co.,Ltd. (603296), and Andon Health Co.,Ltd. (002432), along with numerous domestic and international entrepreneurs and top-tier investment institutions.

For a company founded only in early 2026, a nearly $100 million angel round is not common. It more closely resembles a preemptive bet by the capital market, seeking the "next robotics star company" following the sustained hype around companies like Unitree and Zhiyuan Robotics.

The most noteworthy aspect of this company is not just the funding amount, but the people and capital standing behind it.

Striding AI was founded in early 2026 by serial entrepreneur Yao Song, Charoen Pokphand Group, and Tsinghua young scholar Yu Chao. It focuses on the "physical intelligence" direction, aiming to propel humanoid robots into real commercial and industrial scenarios through world action models and reinforcement learning technologies. The company states that the funds from this round will primarily be used to recruit talent in algorithms, engineering, and commercialization, accelerate the iteration of core technologies like world action models and reinforcement learning, and speed up validation and productization in scenarios such as retail and industry.

In this funding round, Yao Song is the most prominent figure.

Yao Song is a 2011 undergraduate alumnus of Tsinghua University's Department of Electronic Engineering. Around 2016, he co-founded the AI chip company DeePhi Tech with mentors and friends from Tsinghua, serving as its CEO. On July 18, 2018, Xilinx announced its acquisition of DeePhi Tech. Specific financial terms were not disclosed, though the market estimated the deal to be worth approximately $300 million at the time. Tsinghua's Department of Electronic Engineering subsequently referred to DeePhi Tech as the "first venture capital exit case in China's AI industry."

This experience placed Yao Song early on the list of China's hard-tech entrepreneurs. After DeePhi Tech, he entered the commercial aerospace sector, co-founding Oriental Space and serving as its Co-founder and Co-CEO. In January 2024, Oriental Space's first rocket, "Gravity-1," successfully completed its maiden sea launch, setting records including being the world's largest solid-fuel launch vehicle. In the same month, Oriental Space completed a nearly 600 million yuan Series B financing, with cumulative funding reaching about 1.7 billion yuan.

From AI chips to commercial aerospace and now embodied intelligence, Yao Song's entrepreneurial path has almost aligned with several key investment trends in China's hard-tech sector over the past decade. Chips focus on computing power, rockets on engineering, while robotics requires algorithms, hardware, manufacturing, and application scenarios simultaneously. To some extent, Striding AI is not a suddenly emerging robotics project but an extension of Yao Song's third entrepreneurial endeavor.

The involvement of Huaqin Co.,Ltd. makes this funding more than just a financial investment. Huaqin is a leading domestic ODM for smart hardware, with businesses covering smartphones, laptops, servers, and automotive electronics. In February 2026, Huaqin signed a strategic cooperation for robotics business with embodied intelligence company Yuanli Lingji in Nanchang, Jiangxi, and held a ceremony for the first shipment of data collection robots. Public information shows that robotics is one of the key emerging businesses under Huaqin's "3+N+3" strategic layout, with the company aiming to become a top-tier full-stack robotics solution provider in the 3C manufacturing field.

The participation of Andon Health Co.,Ltd. adds another layer of capital market significance. Andon Health previously reaped huge profits from COVID-19 test products and has since frequently invested in hard-tech projects like AI, semiconductors, and robotics. It has participated in funding hot assets such as Moonshot AI and MetaX, and now appears in Striding AI's angel investor list. For Andon Health, embodied intelligence represents another piece in its hard-tech investment portfolio.

Such investments are inherently controversial. On the positive side, Andon Health is using its cash reserves to seek a second growth curve. On the negative side, as the high-growth phase of its core medical device business passes, the company's capital market image is shifting from a medical device manufacturer towards an "industrial investment platform." Investing in Striding AI can be seen as forward-looking positioning, but the market also questions: what real returns can these high-valuation hard-tech investments ultimately bring to the listed company?

The participation of Charoen Pokphand Group provides Striding AI with potential application scenarios. Charoen Pokphand has long been deeply involved in industrial systems like retail, agriculture, and food, all of which are potential landing grounds for embodied intelligence. Compared to simply building robot hardware, Striding AI's strategy of bringing scenario-specific capital into its shareholder list from the outset is clearly paving the way for future commercialization.

This is crucial for robotics companies. Over the past two years, the embodied intelligence industry has found it easiest to talk about technology and hardest to prove orders. Whoever secures real-world scenarios can more easily explain what jobs robots can replace, what efficiencies they can create, and what revenue they can generate. The willingness of capital to invest nearly $100 million at the angel stage bets precisely on whether this company can move beyond PowerPoint presentations and demos faster than its peers.

However, Striding AI is still at the very beginning of its story.

Public information indicates the company is currently developing two main directions: consumer retail and industrial manufacturing. It is advancing the research and development of wheeled-arm robots, humanoid robots, and corresponding scenario solutions. The first batch of self-developed robot hardware and solutions is planned for unveiling in the second half of 2026. This means the funding amount is now on the table, but product, orders, revenue, and mass-production capabilities still require subsequent validation.