By Li Man
In the rapidly accelerating race for humanoid robotics supremacy, the most valuable player may not be the one building the robot itself, but the one perfecting its grip.
Beijing-based startup LinkerBot, which supplies “hands” to robotics makers including Unitree Robotics and AgiBot, is seeking a valuation that now exceeds many of its customers, underscoring the intensity of investor interest in the sector.
According to several people familiar with the matter, LinkerBot is undertaking a new funding round that would value the company at about 20 billion yuan ($3 billion). The company declined to comment.
The valuation is striking when compared with robotics manufacturers. Unitree’s most recent financing in June 2025 gave it a 12.7 billion yuan post-money valuation, according to its IPO prospectus filed in March ahead of a listing on Shanghai’s STAR Market. AgiBot reached a valuation of 15 billion yuan after its Series B round, while Galbot was valued at more than 21 billion yuan. Now, a supplier of a single component — albeit a critical one — has overtaken leading manufacturers of complete robots.
Funding round frenzy
The surge highlights how the boom in robotics has driven up the value of key components. Founded only in July 2023, LinkerBot has had a meteoric rise. The company is currently the world’s only manufacturer capable of producing over 1,000 high-degree-of-freedom (DOF) dexterous hands per month, reportedly commanding over 80% of the global market share in that niche.
In terms of financing, the company closed six funding rounds in 2025. By February 2026, it had raised nearly 1.5 billion yuan in a Series B round at a valuation exceeding 10 billion yuan. A further round at roughly double that level is now in progress, and the company is said to be considering an IPO as early as late 2026. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Ant Group, and CICC Capital.
“Even with the boom in hard tech, a jump like this is something we haven’t seen in the primary market for a long time,” said Lao Huang, an early investor. He recalls that when he first looked at the project in 2024, its revenue was a mere 10 million yuan. By the fourth quarter of 2025, it had skyrocketed to 250 million yuan.
Such growth has drawn intense interest from investors, including state-backed funds that have scrambled to secure a stake. Some, however, have balked at the rising price. “The industry is moving too fast,” one investor said, describing how his firm ultimately declined to invest after repeated internal modelling suggested valuations had run ahead of fundamentals.
The debate reflects a broader question: why has the valuation of a component supplier exceeded that of full-system manufacturers? Some investors describe it as a “picks and shovels” investment thesis. In a sector still characterised by technological uncertainty, capital is gravitating towards areas of relative predictability.
No robots without hands
Humanoid robots remain in flux, with leading designs evolving rapidly and no consensus on a final form. By contrast, core components such as dexterous hands, joint modules and sensors are essential across all platforms. Regardless of which manufacturer ultimately succeeds, demand for these parts is assured. Moreover, the technical barriers are high, and few companies have achieved stable mass production.
The company’s founder, Zhou Yong, has dismissed concerns about a bubble. In recent remarks, he argued that the sector’s expansion is underpinned by real products and deliveries rather than speculative narratives.
Zhou’s focus has been on scale and data. Rather than building a single “perfect” robotic hand, he has emphasised producing large volumes to accumulate datasets and refine capabilities. The company has developed its own hardware and software stack, allowing it to reduce costs and accelerate adoption. Its latest products are priced as low as 3,999 yuan after subsidies, with ambitions to cut prices further.
This approach feeds into a broader strategy centred on data collection. By deploying its own hardware, the company gathers real-world information on human hand movements, building a dataset known as LinkerSkillNet. Zhou has argued that such data will be critical to improving precision and efficiency in robotic manipulation.
The wider industry, meanwhile, continues to grapple with a gap between capability and practical application. In many industrial settings, robots still rely on simple two-finger grippers rather than more complex dexterous hands, reflecting the challenges of integrating advanced hardware into real-world scenarios.
Exponential growth
Two constraints stand out: the trade-off between dexterity and industrial reliability, and the difficulty of scaling production within existing supply chains. Even well-designed components can be hard to manufacture at low cost and high reliability.
Forecasts point to rapid growth. Industry estimates suggest China’s market for dexterous robotic hands could exceed 340,000 units annually by 2030, implying compound annual growth of about 90% from 2024. Globally, the market is expected to surpass $5 billion, expanding at an annual rate of 64.6% over the same period.
Many in the industry believe China is well positioned to dominate given its comprehensive supply chains, cost advantages and large domestic market. As Zhou put it, there may eventually only be a handful of global leaders in robotics — and, in his view, they are likely to be Chinese.
Source:
ChinaVenture
