The China Round is a weekly report tracking venture and strategic investment activity across China’s core technology sectors: AI, robotics, semiconductors, new energy and materials, aerospace and defense, and frontier tech.
Where capital flows tells you where talent is concentrating, where production capacity is being built, and which technologies will reach commercial scale first.
The China Round is free, published every Friday, and written for investors, operators, and founders tracking where China’s tech capital is moving and why it matters.
About the author: Dermot McGrath is Irish, based in Shanghai, a decade in China’s tech and investment ecosystem, fluent Mandarin. Co-founded a VC fund scaled to nine-figure AUM. Now running ZenGen Labs, a cross-border strategy studio covering AI, robotics, and deep tech.
Where the Money Went
129 deals in seven days, $847M (~¥6.1B) in disclosed capital. Aerospace and defense led on dollar volume at $370M across 11 deals, the lowest deal count of any sector, driven by Volant Aerotech’s $300M Series C and Cosmoleap’s ¥500M (~$69M) Series A; no other sector crossed $200M. Robotics followed at $200M across 19 deals, concentrated in RobotEra’s single large round. The remaining five sectors generated 97 deals and under $280M combined.
🚀 Aerospace & Defense (11 deals)
Two rounds accounted for nearly all disclosed capital. Volant Aerotech closed what multiple Chinese financial outlets confirmed as the largest single round in Chinese passenger eVTOL history: over $300M, with a UAE fund (Stone) leading and Shanghai’s first city-level state capital entering. Cosmoleap closed a ¥500M (~$69M) Series A for its chopstick-catch reusable rocket (the same tower-arm booster recovery system SpaceX uses), covered by SpaceNews. The remaining nine deals are earlier stage, concentrated in urban air mobility, SAR satellite infrastructure, and UAV systems.
🤖 Robotics (19 deals)
SF Express both led RobotEra’s $200M+ strategic round and operates the company’s humanoid robots across 10+ logistics centers. The operator-as-investor structure, where the round lead is also the largest deployment partner, is defining which companies demonstrate commercial traction rather than commercial intent. LinkerBot extended its fundraising to seven rounds in 18 months after shipping 10,000+ dexterous hands. Wujie Power attracted a ¥500M (~$69M) overseas deployment contract from Envision alongside its raise, the largest overseas commercial contract signed by a Chinese embodied AI company to date. Botshare, a robot rental platform launched December 2025, completed its fourth round in 105 days.
🧠 AI (22 deals)
Creati.ai closed a $20M Series B for its Buzzy video editing product, which the company frames as “the world’s first AI Video Photoshop,” reporting $15M in ARR and 20 million+ global users. Spirit AI’s Series A+, a straggler from the April 24 batch with Alibaba as sole lead and a reported ¥5.5B (~$760M) valuation, rounds out the AI highlights. The remaining 20 AI deals are early-stage and mostly undisclosed.
🔬 Semiconductors (22 deals)
IDG Capital led a ¥500M (~$69M) Pre-Series A for Calculet at a reported ¥3B valuation, building AI processors on a chiplet architecture. With access to advanced monolithic nodes constrained by export controls, chiplet designs assembled from available process nodes are emerging as a structural workaround. The remaining 21 deals are early-stage and undisclosed.
⚡ New Energy & Materials (24 deals)
The highest deal count at 24, but only $49M disclosed. QingNa Technology raised ¥200M (~$28M) in a Series A for sodium-ion batteries, with one million large cylindrical cells shipped to European customers in January 2026 and five million contracted for the year. The remaining 23 deals are early-stage and mostly undisclosed.
⚙️ Other Advanced Manufacturing (22 deals)
22 deals, almost entirely undisclosed. Cangzhou Four STARS Glass, a 33-year-old pharmaceutical glass maker, closed the only disclosed round at ¥300M (~$42M) Pre-IPO. The remaining deals are concentrated in industrial automation, precision testing, and manufacturing equipment suppliers, the enabling layer beneath the robotics and semiconductor sectors above it.
💡 Frontier Tech (8 deals)
TuringQ completed a Series B+ for photonic quantum computing, reaching an estimated ¥7B (~$970M) valuation on the strength of ¥100M+ (~$14M) in signed orders in H1 2025 and approaching ¥1B (~$138M) raised in 2026 alone. BCDTEK closed a Series A for silicon-based OLED microdisplays (the display technology inside the Apple Vision Pro) while building China’s first 12-inch silicon OLED fab.
Spotlight
Volant Aerotech (沃兰特航空)
Series C, over $300M (~¥2.16B)
The largest single round in Chinese passenger eVTOL history: UAE capital leads, Shanghai’s first city-level state investor enters, and the order book stands at over 1,900 aircraft.