Tiangong Robotics Raises Several Hundred Million Yuan A Round to Scale Sorting Robots, Develop Humanoid Sorting

The report stressed that this Tiangong is not Tiangong Ultra, the humanoid robot that won a half-marathon and is tied to the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center. The two companies have no relationship, according to Leiphone.

Tiangong Robotics was founded in March 2022 by Xiao Jun, a former JD.com group vice president and president of JD's X Division. At JD, Xiao oversaw unmanned warehouses, unmanned vehicles, drones and unmanned stores, and was involved in the development of the Qinglong distribution system. In November 2021 he left JD after 14 years. Four months after registering Tiangong Robotics, in July 2022, the company raised a 200 million yuan angel round from Matrix Partners China, China Renaissance New Economy Fund, Redpoint China and Zero One Venture Capital.

Then the company went quiet for nearly four years. While the humanoid robot industry drew frequent financing records, Tiangong Robotics seldom appeared in public. It spent the time installing sorting machines in warehouses. It now holds production line orders from global top e-commerce and express companies, according to Leiphone.

Its main product is the Muma modular 3D sorter, which handles parcel sorting in e-commerce and express warehouses. The machine uses a vertical modular design with one column and multiple carts, occupying little floor space and allowing chutes to be stacked upward. An expansion module called 3D Sorter X can raise the number of chutes on a single machine to four or five times the original without replacing the main equipment, reducing deployment cost and shortening delivery time, the company said.

The company disclosed a retail case in which a distribution center for a chain with more than 500 stores had old sorting equipment with at most 300 chutes. The stores had to be grouped and processed multiple times. One Muma sorter could meet the chute demand for all 500 stores and merge the workflow. According to the company, the Muma series has achieved leading efficiency in the stereo sorting wall niche and has been deployed in real production scenarios at multiple global e-commerce, express and retail companies. It is a core sorting equipment supplier for several of them. Its markets cover China, Japan, South Korea, the United States and Europe, and its industries include e-commerce, express, retail, 3C and cold chain.

Data compiled by Qichacha from listed company announcements shows that Lanjian Intelligent, an A-share smart warehousing company, purchased more than 40 million yuan of equipment from Tiangong Robotics in 2025, according to Leiphone. Tiangong's product lineup also includes a third-generation storage system, robotic arms and intelligent seeding equipment. The company says it handles core algorithms, software and hardware development and final assembly at its own production base. It was named a national high-tech enterprise in November 2025 and a national innovative small and medium-sized enterprise in May 2026. Several invention patents, including for bin picking and placement, parcel sorting and stereo sorting travel drives, have been authorized this year.

Behind the sorting business, Tiangong is preparing for humanoid robots. Its roadmap is to enter customer warehouses first with specialized sorting equipment, then add robotic arms, intelligent seeding equipment and storage systems, and finally introduce humanoid-based sorting robots. The A round's proceeds include research and commercialization iteration of humanoid sorting as the second priority. That order is the reverse of many humanoid robot companies, which build a body first and then look for a workstation in a warehouse, according to Leiphone.

Xiao's company argues that logistics is the track with the highest certainty and the best chance for humanoid robots to achieve large-scale commercialization first. AgiBot Chairman Deng Taihua offered a more cautious view at the APC conference in May. He said logistics sorting has low gross margins and very fast operating tempo, and that with a two-year investment payback period, humanoid robots currently cannot make the math work in that scenario. AgiBot's sorting deployment this year will start with overseas markets, he said. Leiphone reported that even the largest shipper acknowledges the economics are not yet balanced, suggesting humanoid sorting still requires waiting. In the meantime, Tiangong's specialized equipment keeps running in warehouse positions, saving customers money and reserving those positions for future humanoid robots.

After the 2022 angel round, Tiangong Robotics disclosed no new funding for nearly four years. The company relied on equipment sales to keep moving, expanded customers from domestic e-commerce and express companies to Japan, South Korea, the United States and Europe, and obtained customs import and export declaration qualifications. The team has grown to more than 200 people, with about 85 percent in research and development, according to the company.

The new round brings industrial capital. Chuxin Fund, the lead investor, is one of China's earliest hard-tech investment institutions focused on semiconductor display and often uses a fund plus industry plus park approach. Hefei state capital, a co-investor, is a local government guidance fund. Qichacha shows that in July 2026 Tiangong set up Anhui Qixuan Intelligent Robot Co. Ltd., wholly owned by Tiangong and registered in Hefei. Matrix Partners China, an angel investor, followed on in this round, according to Leiphone.

The risks are clear. Humanoid sorting robots remain in research and development and commercialization iteration, with no scale revenue. Deng's comment about payback is a constraint for the whole humanoid sector, and Tiangong cannot avoid it. If the inflection point comes later than expected, the specialized equipment business must support the company longer. That business is also competitive. Traditional sorting equipment makers include Jinfeng and Dema, while the warehouse robot sector includes companies such as Geek+, Quicktron and Hai Robotics. If humanoid giants such as AgiBot and UBTech make sorting economics work, they could enter directly, and Tiangong's first-mover window will depend on how deeply it understands sorting scenarios and how tightly it binds customers. Several hundred million yuan must cover mass production, humanoid research and overseas expansion at the same time.

The company's answer to why it can survive between demos and mass production, and between launch events and production lines, is blunt: 'I don't hold launch events, I am already on the production line,' according to the Leiphone report. In September 2026, the name Tiangong points in two directions: one robot on a track showing how fast Chinese robots can run, and one company in warehouses showing how much money robots can save customers. Applause belongs to the former; the bill belongs to the latter. Hot searches change every year. Once equipment on a production line starts running, it does not easily stop.