Robbyant, the embodied artificial intelligence division of Ant Group, has begun seeking external funding, becoming the fourth unit of the fintech giant to step up capital-raising efforts.
The unit said it was in talks with investors on Monday. As Ant Group’s “core initiative in embodied intelligence”, a Robbyant spokesperson said it would remain focused on developing a general-purpose “robot brain”, investing in technologies designed specifically for embodied AI and accelerating commercial deployment.
Established in late 2024, the division was seeking about 1.5 billion yuan (US$222 million) in its maiden fundraising round and aimed to complete a second round by the end of this year, Chinese business media outlet LatePost reported on Monday.
Local media outlet Lanjing News reported on the same day that the unit decided to raise capital independently as Ant Group’s broader push into AI squeezed internal computing budgets, while financing in the embodied AI sector had gained momentum.
Last month, Robbyant released the second generation of its LingBot AI foundation model family. The updated suite includes new tools designed to help robotic systems process visual data and navigate physical environments such as LingBot-Vision and LingBot-Depth 2.0 for spatial perception and LingBot-VA 2.0, which predicts how a scene evolves and how a robot should act within it.
Robbyant is part of a wider trend across Ant Group. In 2024, the parent company announced the restructuring of three major operations – Ant International, OceanBase and Ant Digital Technologies – giving them their own boards, independent operating structures and tailored employee stock options while keeping them as subsidiaries.
