Galactic Universal, founded in May 2023 by Wang He (a 2021 Stanford PhD graduate under Professor Leonidas J. Guibas) and Yao Tengzhou (a student of robotics pioneer Wang Tianmiao), has emerged as China's most well-funded embodied AI company with cumulative financing reaching 7 billion yuan.
In early March 2026, the company announced a 2.5 billion yuan B++ round featuring investors including the third phase of the National Major Industry Investment Fund, Sinopec, CITIC Group, SAIC, BOC Asset Management, and Yizhuang State-owned Investment. This round set a new single-round financing record in the embodied intelligence sector, pushing the company's valuation above 3 billion USD (over 20 billion yuan).
The National Major Industry Investment Fund is China's "national team" in chip investment, backed by the Ministry of Finance, China Development Bank, and central enterprises. Galactic Universal marks the fund's first entry into the embodied intelligence track—a move that signals strategic national interest in the sector.
AstraBrain: The 'Brain' That Differentiates Galactic Universal
Unlike competitors that develop "brain" (task planning), "cerebellum" (motion control), and "limbs" (perception/execution) separately, Galactic Universal has developed AstraBrain, an end-to-end large model that integrates all three. The company claims AstraBrain enables robots to experience billions of "trial-and-error games" in virtual worlds, giving them the ability to "observe, think, and act" like humans.
Commercialization Path
Galactic Universal has partnered with Meituan to deploy Galbot robots in nearly ten unmanned pharmacies in Beijing, handling inventory, restocking, pickup, delivery, and packing operations. The company has also signed strategic cooperation agreements for applications in new-energy vehicles, instant retail, healthcare, and smart cities.
At the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, Galactic Universal's Galbot demonstrated autonomous operations including playing with walnuts, picking up glass fragments, folding clothes, and skewering sausages—operations that were not pre-programmed but executed by the robot's "brain."
Source: 36Kr (https://eu.36kr.com/en/p/3845393290267138)
