China’s humanoid race just produced its biggest single financing event. XPENG’s robotics arm signed agreements to take in over $900M at a post-money valuation above $6.3B, which the company calls a record for the country’s embodied AI sector.
IDG Capital leads the raise, Gaorong Ventures participates, and Tencent and Alibaba come in as strategic backers. This marks the unit’s first external round. XPENG keeps control and the business stays consolidated in its accounts once the deal closes.
The cash targets hardware and software development, physical AI model training, data generation and mass production lines. The flagship product, the IRON humanoid, packs 76 degrees of freedom in its body and 21 in each hand, powered by three in-house Turing AI chips delivering up to 2,250 TOPS of on-device compute. XPENG says the robot runs fully autonomously with no remote operation.
Production begins by the end of 2026 at the company’s own stores and campuses, with deliveries in China and overseas planned for 2027. Chairman He Xiaopeng credits 12 years of vertical R&D spanning the firm’s physical world foundation model, Turing chips and AI infrastructure for making the raise possible.
The market’s reaction was cooler. Shares slid more than 7% on the announcement, extending a 12-month decline of about 50% as competition in the core EV business intensifies at home and from Tesla. The robotics division now carries a $6.3B price tag even as the parent’s stock keeps falling.
