Over 300 million yuan in revenue in one year.

Author丨Lu Zhigao

Editor丨Wang Qingwu

Source丨Dongsi Forty Capital

Wuxi has just given birth to a star IPO.

On September 9, Youdi Robotics was listed in Hong Kong. Right after the opening, this Wuxi-based robotics company saw its stock price rise over 160% compared to the issue price of 14.45 HKD, with a market value exceeding 15.5 billion HKD.

Under the leadership of veteran Lu Ying from the "Little Smart" era, Youdi Robotics, derived from UT Starcom, has gone through 13 rounds of financing and finally knocked on the door of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Along with the sound of the IPO bell, investors such as Junlian Capital, Alibaba, Yunfeng Fund, SenseTime Guoxiang Capital, Shenqi Capital, Xueqiu Capital, Shaanxi Hongchuang, Green Hotel, Shou Tour Home, Huazhu Club, iFLYTEK, Sun Hung Kai Investment, Gui'an Kunpeng Fund, Deyang Kaizhou, and Xinfang Capital also welcomed their harvest moments.

Led by veterans of UT Starcom, Wuxi harvests a star IPO

The birth of Youdi Robotics stemmed from the strategic adjustment of UT Starcom.

After the spin-off of UT Starcom that launched products like Little Smart and IPTV, Lu Ying, who briefly led the company to profitability, ultimately gained control of UT Starcom China. In 2013, under the leadership of Lu Ying and others, Youdi Technology, a subsidiary of UT Starcom China, began to focus on robotics, becoming the predecessor of Youdi Robotics.

At that time, Lu Ying might not have thought that this special experience at UT Starcom would lead him to establish a publicly listed company in the future. However, the intersection between the two would take much longer. After graduating from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and working for a while, Lu Ying obtained a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in the United States and founded a company that later received investment from UT Starcom in 2001.

It was the investment from UT Starcom that helped Lu Ying through tough times in the early stages of his entrepreneurship, “UT Starcom provided me with crucial support when I faced difficulties.” This gratitude also prompted him to join UT Starcom without hesitation when the company encountered challenges, leading to the story of Youdi Robotics.

Once established, Youdi Robotics quickly began to develop robots. From providing research and development services for the central control unit CCU to further entering the development of robotic products and solutions, in their early development phase, they not only cooperated with NVIDIA but also explored outdoor unmanned driving.

As the project progressed, the team gradually discovered that at that time, the prices of hardware like LiDAR were high, the overall industry chain costs were elevated, and the complexities in open road environments were considerable. Although technology could continue to progress, high costs and complex environments made large-scale commercialization more challenging.

Thus, this company chose to shift from open roads to low-speed, relatively closed environments, focusing on indoor delivery robots instead of passenger-carrying unmanned taxis to achieve early commercialization. In 2016, Youdi Robotics launched its first-generation indoor smart delivery robot "Youxiaomei".

After entering indoor environments, technical issues shifted from open roads to specific business processes. A delivery robot completing an order requires continuous handling of localization, navigation, obstacle avoidance, elevators, access control, notifications, multi-machine scheduling, and equipment operation and maintenance. Indoor deliveries for hotels and KTVs became some of their early validated business scenarios.

By 2019, Youdi Robotics’ shipment volume had exceeded 2,500 units, and two years later, it broke through 10,000 units. After expanding product numbers, the company replicated its established capabilities across more businesses, launching the cleaning robot Youxiaogu, and in 2023, commercializing the Youxiayun AI vision model platform.

After more than a decade of development, Youdi Robotics, which relocated its registered office from Shenzhen to Wuxi, has not only grown into a star robotics company but also successfully knocked on the door of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Sold over 110,000 robots, with over 300 million yuan in revenue in one year

With products like commercial service robots and AI vision model solutions, Youdi Robotics supports an IPO.

Currently, this company has developed five types of commercial service robot products: the Youxiaomei series for indoor delivery and guest guidance, the Youxiaodi series for large-capacity indoor delivery, the Youxiaoge series for on-demand delivery in closed environments, the Youxiaogu series for indoor and outdoor cleaning, and the Youxiaofeng series for unmanned retail.

The changes in products also outline their past business expansion path. Starting with indoor delivery, then moving to large-capacity delivery, closed-environment delivery, indoor and outdoor cleaning, and unmanned retail, Youdi Robotics applies the same set of robot capabilities across different operating environments.

As the company's earliest delivery robot, Youxiaomei primarily entered hotels and entertainment venues, handling tasks such as item delivery, guest guidance, and inter-floor delivery. Once a robot receives a task, it moves relying on perception, localization, and navigation, avoiding obstacles during operation and coordinating with elevator, access control, notification, and scheduling systems.

Apart from delivery, Youdi Robotics entered the cleaning robot market through the launch of Youxiaogu, covering both indoor and outdoor cleaning. Their Youxiaofeng is used for unmanned retail, capable of independently completing self-service retail and collaborating with Youxiaomei to transfer goods from the vending robot to the delivery robot, which then continues the delivery process.

Behind the different products is a shared set of foundational robotic capabilities. Currently, this company employs a cloud-edge collaborative architecture, where the robot handles tasks such as visual perception, localization, navigation, obstacle avoidance, and motion control—requiring high real-time performance—while the cloud manages data, model training and optimization, task coordination, and remote operation and maintenance.

As robots extend from indoor delivery to outdoor, cleaning, and retail, the operational environments that this technological system needs to adapt to are also increasing.

As of today, the cloud infrastructure of Youdi Robotics can simultaneously support over 15,000 robots, executing more than 360,000 instructions daily. The ultimate goal of this capability is to ensure that even as deployment scales up, the company can simultaneously manage a large number of devices remotely.

In addition to robots, the company also provides AI vision model solutions through the Youxiayun platform on a project basis. In simple terms, this business develops, trains, and deploys visual models based on industry client needs, applicable for tasks like object detection, scene recognition, and abnormal behavior detection.

While selling robots, the company continuously expands its scale by providing visual analysis services. According to their prospectus, as of March 2026, this company had sold over 114,600 robots to more than 5,100 customers worldwide. During this process, their revenue has increased from 244 million yuan in 2023 to 318 million yuan in 2025.

However, influenced by R&D and other factors, they are currently still in a state of loss. In 2023 to 2025, Youdi Robotics’ net losses were 251 million yuan, 151 million yuan, and 111 million yuan, respectively. In the first quarter of 2026, the company's revenue was 77 million yuan, with a net loss of 31 million yuan.

The good news is that China's commercial service robot market is still growing rapidly. According to Frost & Sullivan forecasts, China's market size for commercial service robot products and solutions is expected to increase from 2.2 billion yuan in 2025 to 7.1 billion yuan in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 25.9% between 2025 and 2030.

If calculated by revenue, Youdi Robotics ranked third in this market in 2025, with a market share of 8.9%. Although they have entered the leading ranks, the competitive landscape in China's commercial service robot market is far from settled, whether in delivery or cleaning.

Supported by Junlian and Alibaba, raised funds through 13 rounds

Along the way, Youdi Robotics has gathered many investors behind it.

Back in 2016, the first generation of Youxiaomei had just been launched. Under the leadership of Lu Ying, who possesses rich entrepreneurial and management experience, they completed their Series A financing in September of that year, with investors including Sun Hung Kai Investment.

Seeing potential in the commercial robot market, coupled with recognition of the founding team's industry experience and productization capabilities, Junlian Capital chose to invest in Youdi Robotics in 2018, along with Jiangsu Lianfeng.

After that, more funds began to pour into the company. In the B2 round, Suodao Investment and Yun Jin Capital invested 26 million yuan; in the B3 round, 46.8 million yuan was raised with investors including Junlian Capital, Snowball Capital, and Shaanxi Hongchuang; the B3+ round raised 5 million yuan from Bacardi.

By July 2020 in the B4 round, industry capital entered in batches. By then, Green Hotel, Shou Tour Home, and Huazhu Club all became shareholders of Youdi Robotics.

For these investors, if robots can reduce repetitive labor, decrease employee labor intensity, and enhance service efficiency and contactless experience, they become a part of daily operating systems in hotels rather than just display devices.

As robot sales rapidly increased, Youdi Robotics also secured investments from Silver Wind Capital, Alibaba, Yunfeng Fund, Guanda Holdings, Jianling Capital, Shenqi Capital, and Wotu Investment.

At that time, Yunfeng Fund viewed the company as possessing excellent low-speed automated delivery capabilities, having achieved deployment in leisure and entertainment, hotels, and campus settings. Meanwhile, Shenqi Capital focused more on the indoor and outdoor delivery capabilities of Youdi Robotics, believing that a strategic collaboration could be formed between both parties.

Starting from June 2022, local state-owned enterprises began to accelerate their entry. Over roughly three years, they completed multiple rounds of financing, with investors including New Shang Capital, Chaohu High Quality, SenseTime Guoxiang Capital, Gui'an Kunpeng Fund, Wutong Investment, Deyang Kaizhou, Zhongjiang High-tech, Zhongtian Ronghui, and Xinfang Capital.

After nearly a decade, the valuation of Youdi Robotics increased from 80 million yuan to 3.84 billion yuan. Meanwhile, the company’s shareholder types now include financial investors, internet and industrial capital, hotel groups, and local state-owned enterprises.

Before the IPO, Junlian Capital held an 8.02% stake, making it the largest external shareholder; Alibaba held 7.9%, Yunfeng Fund held 6.4%, and SenseTime Guoxiang Capital held 5.89%. Based on a rough market value of 15.5 billion HKD, the holdings of these investors were approximately valued at 1.2 billion HKD, 1.2 billion HKD, 1 billion HKD, and 900 million HKD respectively.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。