China's Pudu Tech raises another tranche of Series C funding

The first tranche closed in May 2021 on USD 78m. Four months later, Pudu announced a USD 77m extension led by Meituan, Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund, Shenzhen Investment Holdings, and Sequoia Capital China. Tranche three, which saw Puhua Capital contribute more than USD 15m, closed in February.

QC Capital and Rong Quan Capital were among Pudu's earliest backers, providing a CNY 50m Series A round in 2018. A Series B of CNY 100m, led by Sequoia and featuring Meituan, came in 2020.

Pudu was founded in 2016 in Shenzhen and has launched 10 robot models capable of basic indoor and restaurant delivery, in-building delivery, cleaning and disinfecting, and reception desk functionality. It has developed proprietary technology covering motors, single-line LiDAR, RGB depth-sensing cameras, and computing platforms and motion controllers.

KettyBot, the reception robot, can display advertising, interact with customers, perform greeting and ushering duties, and do voice interaction. FlashBot, the building delivery specialist, is said to be the first robot created globally to ride in elevators alongside people.

The company’s most recent delivery robot, PuduBot 2, features independently developed visual simultaneous localisation and mapping technology (VSLAM). Applied at large scale, it enables greater accuracy and reliability in positioning and greater scenario adaptability.

Pudu has shipped more than 56,000 units to date, including 20,000 in 2022 alone, according to a statement issued when tranche three closed. The company has provided no further update. It claims revenue operations increased by nearly 40% year-on-year in 2022.

Overseas sales began in 2020 – driven by recruitment challenges in the service sector globally – and these now account for 80% of annual revenue. The company has established a presence in more than 60 territories. Notably, Japanese restaurant group Skylark made a single order for 3,000 units of the BellaBot, an indoor delivery robot. This is said to be an industry record.

Pudu and Keenon Robotics are regarded as the preeminent players in China's service robot space. Keenon received a USD 200m Series D round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in 2021. According to local database iimedia, China’s service rob ot market was worth CNY 74bn in 2022 and is expected to reach CNY96bn this year.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Technology
• Consumer
• Growth
• China
• robotics
• Growth capital
• Sequoia Capital
• Meituan-Dianping
• Puhua Capital