Humanoid robots have taken center stage at the Spring Festival Gala, becoming the undeniable stars. They perform martial arts, execute backflips, act in skits alongside humans, and autonomously complete daily tasks such as folding clothes and fetching objects. This concentrated exposure quickly resonated in the capital markets.
On March 2, two "performers" from the Gala announced new funding rounds. Galaxy General Robotics announced the completion of a new 2.5 billion yuan financing round, breaking its previous record set in December 2025 for the largest single funding round in China's embodied AI sector. On the same day, Songyan Power announced the completion of its Series B round, bringing its cumulative financing to nearly 1 billion yuan.
A wave of capital is once again flowing into the embodied AI sector. Behind the bustling fundraising activity, a fierce industry shakeout has already begun.
"2026 will be a year of separating the genuine from the fake and accelerating consolidation in the embodied robot industry," noted angel investor and senior AI expert Guo Tao. He pointed out that as industrial giants from sectors like automotive and smartphone manufacturing enter the fray with mature supply chains, massive data, and manufacturing prowess, the industry is transitioning from a conceptual "toy era" to a practical "tool era." When the stage lights dim, the real test begins.
The collective appearance of robots reflects a strategic consensus among major companies: the Spring Festival Gala has become a crucial platform for visibility in this competitive race. Previously, Zhang Yi, CEO and Chief Analyst of iiMedia Consulting, suggested that a robot's appearance on the national broadcast can translate industrial influence into capital market confidence, accelerating investment due to the validated technical scenarios.
Precedents for this path to success exist. In 2016, UBTECH's 540 synchronized dancing robots led to subsequent funding rounds. In 2025, Unitree Robotics leveraged a mere three-minute stage performance to achieve annual shipments exceeding 5,500 units and a valuation surge to 12 billion yuan. In 2026, Galaxy General and Songyan Power emerged as the early winners capitalizing on this exposure.
On the Gala stage, Galaxy General's Galbot G1 robot, utilizing its self-developed "Galaxy Star Brain" system, performed a series of delicate tasks—handling walnuts, skewering sausages, picking up glass fragments, folding clothes—entirely through real-time autonomous decision-making without pre-set programs, marking the first truly "autonomous working" robot in Gala history. Meanwhile, Songyan Power left a distinct impression with complex street dance moves, its "long-necked" E1 robot, and a biomimetic robot resembling actress Cai Ming.
Merely two weeks after the Gala, both companies announced significant funding. Galaxy General's new 2.5 billion yuan round was led by the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund (the third phase of the "Big Fund") and included participation from "national team" and industrial capital players like Sinopec, SAIC Motor's financial arm, Zhongxin Juyuan, and E-Town Capital. Galaxy General stated this financing solidifies its position with the highest cumulative funding and valuation among unlisted humanoid robotics companies in China.
Songyan Power's Series B round, led by CATL-associated industrial platform Chendao Capital with participation from Guoke Investment and Jing Guosheng Fund, totaled nearly 1 billion yuan. However, a key reality is the rapidly diminishing marginal effect of Gala exposure. As robots become commonplace on stage, captivating audiences and investors requires more than just a flawless performance.
"Since the beginning of the year, robots have gained significant recognition in the funding wave, driven by both value validation and strategic positioning," Zhang Yi observed. He noted that as Gala robots gained widespread attention, technological application has moved from concept to reality. Capital focus has shifted from speculative hype towards achievable, verifiable commercial value, prioritizing ROI and specific application scenarios, which is why top-tier embodied AI firms are highly sought after.
The development paths of Galaxy General and Songyan Power differ, reflecting distinct investment logics. Galaxy General's funding, anchored by the national AI fund, underscores the strategic national importance of embodied AI. The company boasts what it claims is the world's largest hundred-billion-scale embodied AI dataset and a pioneering training paradigm blending synthetic simulation data with real-world data. Its "Galaxy Star Brain" integrates multi-modal perception with real-time底层 control, solving industry issues like module fragmentation and response lag, positioning it as the first end-to-end embodied large model integrating "cerebrum, cerebellum, and neural control."
Galaxy General reported collaborations in industrial manufacturing with clients like CATL, Bosch, and Toyota, with cumulative orders reaching several thousand units. Its heavy-duty industrial robot, Galbot S1, is reportedly the only humanoid robot operating routinely within a CATL battery factory. In the consumer sector, its "Galaxy Space Capsule" unmanned convenience stores have been deployed in over 100 locations across more than 20 cities, setting an industry record for continuous 24/7 operation of an instant retail warehouse exceeding one year.
In contrast, Songyan Power's funding highlights a different industrial capital logic. Led by Chendao Capital, the investment focuses on seeking industrial chain synergy and ecosystem positioning within clean energy and smart manufacturing. Songyan's differentiating advantage lies in its focus on the consumer market. As the only company developing both bipedal humanoid and biomimetic humanoid robot lines, Songyan believes the ultimate goal for humanoids is strong interaction and emotional resonance, with biomimetic technology being key to unlocking the home consumer market. The company holds over 30 core patents, has built a dedicated mass production base, and launched the industry's first high-performance humanoid robot priced around ten thousand yuan, "Xiaobumi," testing the potential of the consumer market with cost-effectiveness.
This early-2026 funding surge is accelerating the push for tangible implementation in the humanoid robot industry, demanding clearer corporate positioning. Guo Tao attributed the热潮 to a confluence of policy, technology, and market expectations. Embodied AI's inclusion in national plans provides clear policy direction; the potential market size for intelligent robots is projected to reach billions of units, far exceeding the automotive industry; leading companies have achieved over 90% hardware self-development rates, accelerating core component localization, and commercial application conditions are maturing. These factors are pushing the industry from early conceptual exploration into a critical period of technological implementation and commercialization.
However, Guo Tao emphasized the accelerating shift from the "toy era" to the "tool era." This transition means companies lacking core technology, mass production capability, and viable application scenarios will be gradually eliminated. "2026 is a crucial milestone for humanoid robot commercialization, but widespread adoption remains some distance away. Short-term breakthroughs are expected in industrial settings like automotive manufacturing and 3C electronics. Large-scale commercialization still needs to overcome challenges related to technological maturity, cost control, and unified safety standards."
In Guo Tao's view, the embodied AI landscape in 2026 features increasingly cautious capital favoring companies with mass-production capabilities and clear market prospects, making fundraising more difficult for startups. Simultaneously, the entry of giants raises competitive barriers, concentrating market share towards firms with advantages in technology, cost, and application scenarios, potentially squeezing out many small and medium-sized startups lacking competitiveness.
As the spotlight from the stage fades, the true contest—centered on technology, production scale, real-world application, and commercialization prowess—is entering its decisive phase.