CATL, the world's largest battery manufacturer, has made a rare direct strategic investment in RoboParty, a startup specializing in an open, fully functional platform for bipedal humanoid robots. This investment is part of angel-plus and Pre-A rounds, totaling nearly 500 million yuan.
RoboParty's founder, Juan Yi, who is 22 years old, enrolled at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in 2022. As a freshman, he developed the open bipedal robot AlexBot in his dormitory, which was subsequently copied by over ten enterprises and universities. After an early release in 2025, he moved to Jiangzang Robot Valley in Shanghai and founded RoboParty.
In eight months, the startup has conducted six funding rounds, increasing its valuation by more than 20 times. It is supported by companies such as Matrix Partners, Xiaomi Strategic Investment, Galbot, SenseTime, Baidu Ventures, Pudong Venture Capital, and Shunwei Capital, with reports indicating that these investments did not include performance or buyback clauses.
RoboParty positions itself as an open, fully functional platform covering all aspects—from chassis to modules. The platform integrates self-research of the entire machine, vertical integration, mass production capabilities, basic model functionality, and an open ecosystem, connecting chassis, models, and developer ecosystems. In January, the company released RPO—a prototype of a completely open bipedal humanoid robot for global developers, allowing them to build a system from scratch. This release attracted about 10,000 subscribers in the developer community, over 2,000 stars on GitHub, and nearly 1,000 orders from developers, universities, research institutes, and model teams.
The RP1, planned for launch in the fourth quarter, will focus on improving performance, reliability, and continuous development in complex real-world scenarios. RoboParty's clients include robotics development companies needing real machines for demonstrations, as well as industrial partners requiring joint development of chassis and software/hardware systems.
In addition to hardware, RoboParty introduced Party OS—a reusable foundation for research and development that systematizes data collection, action processing, training stability, and policy deployment. The company also opened the source code for MimicLite for motion tracking, UFO for unsupervised reinforcement learning, and Human-to-Humanoid Tools for redirection. Chassis provide access to clients and the real world, while Party OS accumulates data, forming a co-developed open platform.
Juan Yi believes that companies developing embodied models lack chassis, while chassis manufacturers operate in closed systems, and open source code is the key to connecting them. His conviction is that if closed systems are symbols of power, then open source code is the faith of civilization.
CATL's investment signifies more than just capital; this strategic structure rarely makes direct bets, indicating a shift from financial investing to industry chain coordination. Both parties plan to explore the application of humanoid robots in manufacturing and complex operational environments. In the post-Unitree era, Juan Yi expresses regret that no robot has surpassed the Unitree G1 in the last two years, blaming it on resource loss due to changing directions before product-market fit was confirmed. RoboParty prioritizes technical metrics and SOTA benchmarks, valuing one hundred high-quality developers over hundreds of orders. Investors characterize Juan Yi as a reserved, pure, and technically obsessed individual with an unusually deep understanding of business. CATL's stake may represent a 'DeepSeek' moment in embodied intelligence: transforming model technology from a privilege of the few into infrastructure for all, thereby transforming the foundation of humanoid robotics.
The Wentian scientific laboratory module, launched in July 2022, has reached four years of stable operation in orbit. This module is the first specialized module for scientific experiments in the country, supporting capacity for six crew members and external exposure.
The Wentian module measures 17.9 meters in length, 4.2 meters in diameter, and weighs 23 tons. It functions as a multi-functional research platform and serves as a backup for the main Tianhe module, capable of fully controlling the space station combination if necessary. The deployment of this module into orbit demonstrates China's progress from manned spaceflight capabilities to establishing sustainable orbital scientific research infrastructure.
The module's design includes three compartments: a working compartment, a docking compartment, and a resource compartment. The working compartment is equipped with three sleeping berths for the crew and one hygiene zone, allowing the Tiangong space station to accommodate up to six astronauts simultaneously. This is where the Shenzhou-14 crew arrived for the first time in Chinese space history, when astronauts Chen Dong and Liu Yang met the Shenzhou-15 crew aboard Wentian. In addition to crew accommodation, the module provides extensive space for experimental racks for research in materials science, hydrodynamics, combustion science, and life sciences under microgravity conditions.
The docking compartment represents a significant infrastructural breakthrough. Thanks to its 'square outside—round inside' design, the external square hull serves as a platform for external exposure experiments, while the internal cylindrical space is used as an astronaut egress channel for extravehicular activities (EVA). A one-meter diameter hatch allows passage for astronauts and movement of large equipment for external operations. The first spacewalk from Wentian occurred on September 1, 2022, when the Shenzhou-14 crew conducted EVA through this hatch, which offers a more spacious preparation area and smoother internal surfaces compared to the Tianhe module unit.
Another innovation is the ability to generate energy. Dual-axis flexible solar wings unfold over 55 meters, with each wing providing approximately 110 square meters of effective energy generation area. Daily power generation exceeds 430 kWh, ensuring sufficient power for scientific research and station operations. The flexible solar array technology, which can be folded during launch and deployed in orbit, is a major engineering achievement in China's aerospace energy systems.
The four-year anniversary coincides with the achievement of operational maturity for the complete Tiangong space station, which is now in a permanent configuration with the Tianhe, Wentian, and Mengtian modules. The station has hosted numerous crew rotations and conducted hundreds of experiments covering space biomedicine, materials science, fundamental physics, and Earth observation. The Wentian external exposure platform continues to conduct experiments on material exposure and space environment monitoring. The module's sustained operation confirms China's approach to modular space station architecture and positions the country for long-term human presence in low Earth orbit within the planned lifespan of Tiangong, supporting preparations for future deep space exploration and international cooperation.
At 26 years old, earning 77 million rupees in a single day sounds like a movie plot, but Siddharth Saxena, an IIT Kanpur graduate, has claimed such an achievement. Recently, AI-based startups have attracted significant attention, and Saxena's story is actively being discussed on social media following a recent interview.
He stated that he managed to earn about 8 million dollars, equivalent to approximately 77 million rupees in one day. Siddharth Saxena holds a B.Tech degree in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur. After graduating, he worked at major companies in machine learning and artificial intelligence fields.
Later, he co-founded the startup Merlin with his colleagues, which is an AI-powered extension for Google Chrome. This tool assists in writing emails, extracting the essence of web pages, generating content, and performing numerous other tasks. Merlin solves a problem by transforming standard browsers, such as Chrome or Edge, into agentic browsers.
Using the Merlin extension allows users to summarize page content or conduct research on it directly within the browser, without switching to other tabs or websites to use generative AI. Saxena emphasized that the functionality is similar to what is available in Comet Browser from Perplexity. He clarified in the interview that this amount was earned through a specific deal or transaction but did not disclose this information publicly.
Merlin was launched in 2022. Saxena created it together with his friends from IIT Kanpur, Pratyush Rai and Sirsendu Sarkar. The company grew rapidly, and reports suggest its valuation reached approximately 50 million dollars. Additionally, Siddharth is a co-founder of another AI startup named Thine.
Siddharth believes that most people in India grow up in environments of limited resources, leading them to avoid risk. In his view, creating a successful company requires unconventional thinking and setting ambitious goals. He also noted the difference between approaches in the US and India: in America, many start companies out of passion, whereas in India, career choices are often dictated by necessity.
During the interview, Saxena made a bold statement regarding IIT Kanpur, asserting that getting into the Computer Science program at IIT Kanpur is more difficult than getting into Harvard University, by about 20 times.
