Vbot is a fast-moving entrant in China's booming embodied-AI and home-robotics scene, founded in late 2024 by a team with deep roots in autonomous systems. CEO Yu Yinan is a former vice president and early founding member of Horizon Robotics, one of China's leading AI-chip companies, and his co-founders include Horizon's former chief software architect and a former smart-driving products director at Li Auto. That pedigree gives Vbot unusual strength in the software and AI layers that make consumer robots genuinely useful.
The company's strategy is to start with an approachable, lower-complexity product and build toward more ambitious hardware. Its first product is an AI robot dog, a calm, intelligent companion-style quadruped that debuted at CES 2026, which Vbot is using to establish manufacturing, distribution, and brand presence. From that base, the company plans to develop full-size humanoid robots, leaning on embodied-AI software and world models to control increasingly capable machines.
Vbot's emphasis on world models is notable. Rather than treating robotics purely as a hardware problem, the company is investing in AI systems that let its robots build internal representations of their environment and act intelligently within it, a frontier approach shared by leading physical-AI labs. Combined with offline retail expansion, this positions Vbot to compete in the consumer market where usability and intelligence matter as much as mechanical capability.
In 2026 Vbot raised approximately $73 million (around RMB 500 million) in a Pre-A round to expand robot production, grow its retail footprint, and accelerate humanoid development. The round was co-led by Oriental Fortune Capital, Huatai Zijin Investment, and Fosun RZ Capital, with participation from investors including SAIC Motor's Shangqi Capital. The funding supports scaling production of its robot dog from hundreds to thousands of units per month. With a strong founding team, a shipping consumer product, and ambitions toward humanoids and world models, Vbot is one of the more credible new names in Chinese consumer robotics.