OriginFlow, founded by 25-year-old Tsinghua PhD student, raises CNY 500M for embodied AI
What's the deal? OriginFlow, an embodied intelligence startup founded in 2025 by Qin Shendao — a 25-year-old PhD student at Tsinghua University — has closed a CNY 500M (~$70M) seed round just five months after launch. The Beijing-based company builds the "human intelligence layer" for embodied AI, using surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors to capture human muscle signals and translate them into training data for robots.
Why now? Embodied intelligence has become one of the hottest sectors in Chinese tech, with majors like Baidu, HuaweiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and a wave of startups pouring resources into humanoid robots and physical AI systems. Beijing has made robotics a strategic priority, and investor appetite for AI-adjacent hardware ventures is surging.
The founder's Tsinghua pedigree doesn't hurt either. The university has become a launchpad for China's most prominent AI entrepreneurs, giving young founders instant credibility with venture capitalists. Qin previously graduated from Harbin Institute of Technology and is on Tsinghua's Future Scholar PhD Programme.
What could go wrong? Embodied AI remains largely pre-commercial. Most humanoid robot startups worldwide are burning cash on R&D with no clear path to revenue at scale. A 25-year-old founder still pursuing his PhD will face questions about whether he can manage a company with this much capital and expectation.
The sector is also getting crowded. With so much money chasing embodied intelligence in China, many startups will inevitably fail as the market consolidates.
The signal: This raise reflects two converging trends: China's aggressive bet on physical AI as a national priority, and a broader global shift in venture interest from pure software to hardware-enabled intelligence. When a PhD student can raise $70M before turning 26, it says as much about the frenzy around the sector as it does about the founder. Investors are placing big, early bets that the next wave of AI won't just live in the cloud — it will walk, grasp, and navigate the real world.
Read more: 36Kr · vietnam.vn
