The young Chinese founder has secured funding for startup that aims at the country’s first fully open-source humanoid robot platform.
In April 2025, Beijing-based startup RoboParty formally launched with an ambition to build a fully open-source bipedal humanoid robot platform. The founder, Huang Yi , made headlines as one of China ’s youngest humanoid-robot entrepreneurs.
RoboParty has completed a seven-figure seed round from investors including Matrix Partners China, Xiaomi Strategic Investment, Galaxy Universal, and L2F Capital. PandaDaily reports that while studying as a first-year student at Harbin Institute of Technology, Huang reportedly built a walking humanoid robot named “AlexBot” with a modest budget of about US$2,100 in dormitory conditions and shared the full development process openly. In February 2025, with support from Fourier Intelligence, he launched an upgraded version, “AlexBotmini.” Shortly after that, Huang graduated early and shifted focus toward creating the open-source humanoid-robot ecosystem under RoboParty.RoboParty positions itself as “China’s first fully open-source humanoid robot platform.” The company’s in-development model, referred to as “ATOM,” is described as “China’s first fully open-source humanoid robot,” a name that overlaps with Shenzhen-based Dobot’s ATOM humanoid, a widely recognized, non-open-source commercial robot that has no connection to Huang Yi’s project.Huang emphasizes that the open-source route offers a quicker path to building an entire ecosystem, citing benefits such as shared standards, reduced collaboration barriers, greater security, and enhanced global competitiveness. Policy and ecosystem tailwindsThe RoboParty launch emerges amid a broader push by Chinese authorities to develop robotics, AI, and humanoid systems as key strategic technologies. For example, in March 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission announced a state-backed venture fund expected to attract nearly CNY 1 trillion over 20 years, with a focus on robotics and AI.In addition, in March 2025, a specialized funding initiative for young scholars in humanoid-robot research was announced. The National Local-Joint Humanoid Robot Innovation Center plans to allocate initial grants for projects led by young researchers from universities or institutes, with individual awards ranging from CNY 300,000 to CNY 500,000 . In Shenzhen, local authorities unveiled a CNY 10 billion fund in February 2025 to support AI and robotics firms, covering up to 60% of computing power costs for enterprises and offering subsidies of up to CNY 10 million per enterprise. These policies reinforce the environment in which RoboParty is entering. A national strategy that explicitly names humanoid robots, embodied intelligence, and open-source ecosystems as priorities. For example, Reuters reported that China has allocated more than US$20 billion in subsidies to the humanoid-robot sector, and state procurement of such robots rose from CNY 4.7 million in 2023 to CNY 214 million in 2024. Outlook and challengesRoboParty is now conducting its angel-round fundraising round and aims to deliver its open platform “robotics Android” for the next generation of embodied intelligence. According to the founder’s remarks, the goal is to build a widely accessible, collaborative hardware-software stack that enables developers around the world to work together on humanoid standards and applications. However, the company will face challenges from a sector that remains highly competitive. Commercial-scale humanoid robots remain largely experimental, costly, and with few large deployments to date. Industry Hardware, software integration, cost, and safety still pose significant barriers before humanoids become mainstream in factories or service environments. Nonetheless, RoboParty’s youth-driven, open-source approach makes it a distinct player in China’s evolving humanoid-robot ecosystem.
Chinese Humanoid Chinese Robot Embodied Intelligence Hardware Humanoid Humanoid Robot Roboparty Robot Robotics
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