The first batch of humanoid robot companies have already begun to go bankrupt.
The hottest industry this year is undoubtedly humanoid robots.
This track, which carries the world’s most cutting-edge new materials, AI and other key technologies, hides thousands of growth opportunities and is regarded as the “next trillion terminal”.
It can be said without hesitation that whoever can grasp the most advanced embodied intelligence technology in the future will undoubtedly be the “trendsetters” of the future industrial economy.
But no one expected that the first knockout on the track would come so quickly shortly after the starting gun was fired.
Just now, the first humanoid robot company fell on the track of embodied intelligence.
Silicon Valley star K-Scale Labs closed down after burning out its financing, forcing refunds for hundreds of pre order orders.
The explosion of the robot star company has awakened the crowd on the track: no matter how cool the prototype is, it cannot withstand the actual production cost.
In sharp contrast, Yushu Technology’s humanoid robots sold over 1500 units last year, with HarmonyOS’s “Kuafu” humanoid robot delivering over a hundred units, Ubiquitous’s hundreds of Walker S2 humanoid robots being mass-produced and delivered, and Xiaopeng’s IRON humanoid robot already deployed on factory production lines It is expected that the sales of domestically produced humanoid robots will exceed 15000 units this year.
Previous generations mass produce, later generations break through.
Domestic robot technology, like ‘Kuafu’s daily progress’, is constantly pursuing new breakthroughs and bringing’ light and heat ‘to the global AI track.
It is worth mentioning that humanoid robots are no longer just an arena for technological innovation, but also a strategic location for great power games.
On one hand, there is the “Western robot dream” that has been tripped by mass production, and on the other hand, there is the “Eastern robot craze” of mass production. The outcome of this technology battle that concerns the future is already clear at a glance.
01
In the year 2025, when artificial intelligence is booming, the story of a robot star company can no longer be told.
Recently, Benjamin Bolte, founder of K-Scale Labs (hereinafter referred to as “KSL”), a star robotics company in Silicon Valley, wrote in an email to clients that Chinese robotics companies such as Yushu Technology, Accelerated Evolution, Zhongqing, and Songyan Power have received large-scale production funds. However, K-Scale Labs, which has already started pre orders this year, has dismissed employees and refunded robot deposits due to insufficient operating funds.
KSL, an American humanoid robot company that was founded less than a year ago, has gone bankrupt due to running out of funds, with all employees dissolved, full refunds, and open source technology. Its founder Benjamin’s email seems to have dropped a “deep water bomb” in the European and American robot circles.
Xiaomi founder Lei Jun once said: Standing on the wind, even pigs can fly above the wind.
But who would have thought that in the hot robot race, the first fallen humanoid robot company would actually “die” in mass production.
The collapse of KSL undoubtedly poured a bucket of calm water on the exceptionally hot robot industry.
AI is the future, and embodied intelligence is the best “tentacle” for AI to connect with reality.
Embodied intelligence is a cutting-edge direction in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), which emphasizes the theoretical paradigm of achieving intelligence through the interaction between physical bodies and the environment. Humanoid robots, on the other hand, are physical devices that mimic human appearance and are the best application carriers of embodied intelligence.
Humanoid robots can achieve a “perception action” loop by perceiving the environment, making decisions, and executing actions, just like humans.
You can imagine it as an intelligent agent with “eyes,” “brain,” and “hands and feet,” acquiring information, understanding problems, making decisions, and executing various tasks in reality.
It is worth mentioning that the most important characteristic of embodied intelligence is its ability to learn and evolve through interaction with the real world.
So, the application prospects of embodied intelligence are very broad, including factories, homes, autonomous driving, outdoor exploration and rescue, space exploration and deep-sea exploration, etc.
Against the backdrop of slow global population growth, embodied intelligence is expected to become the next disruptive product, giving the world a awe inspiring look. No wonder major giants are flocking to it.
And the real “take-off point” for humanoid robots is now.
Mass production is becoming the most critical “lifeline” for humanoid robot companies.
Yes, the tightening of financing windows and the absence of supply chains make the “year of mass production” of robots look more like the “year of life and death”.
On the technical side, joint energy consumption, perception errors, and data scarcity form an invisible ceiling; On the cost side, a BOM of 400000 yuan is twice Musk’s target of 20000 yuan; On the scene side, the industrial production line is narrow and households have insufficient willingness to pay, so the ROI cannot be calculated. The capital market is starting to distinguish between PPT and cash flow. Whoever can break through the cost-effectiveness threshold first is qualified to talk about the “iPhone moment”.
02
KSL， This is not an ordinary company.
KSL adheres to the core concept of “open source, low cost, and developer friendly” to create a universal humanoid robot platform for researchers and developers. From birth, KSL stepped on the trend and won three rounds of financing in one go, with a total amount of 6.25 million US dollars; The first robot K-Bot was pre sold for less than half a year and received over $2 million in orders, even Caitlin Kalinowski, the head of OpenAI Robotics, personally placed orders. They even shouted out the slogan of ‘creating an American version of Yushu Technology’.
As a result, this startup, which had secured three rounds of financing and held orders from clients such as OpenAI within less than a year of establishment, ultimately fell on the eve of mass production.
One important reason is that there is no money left for mass production.
During this year, KSL only produced about 10 K-Bot prototypes, each costing over $100000.
The booker did not wait for their robot, but instead received a unsubscribe email.
Benjamin revealed in an email to clients that the company has only $400000 in cash reserves and failed to raise $10-15 million in the third quarter, resulting in a broken funding chain. Currently, employees have been laid off and the robot’s deposit has been refunded.
The sudden death of KSL is not an isolated case, but a microcosm of the difficulties faced by small and medium-sized robot enterprises in Europe and America.
In January 2024, Dextrous Robotics, a US based unloading robot company, announced its dissolution due to insufficient funding to start product production.
In February, the Small Robot Company in the UK closed down due to the inability to obtain the necessary funding for the next phase.
In December, the child companion robot Embodied announced its closure due to financial difficulties, and its flagship product, the robot Moxie, which provides emotional support for children, will also cease operation.
In July 2025, Aldebaran, a French robotics company known as the “global robot pioneer,” went bankrupt due to its inability to achieve large-scale implementation and ultimately sold itself to Shengshi Technology, a Chinese listed company.
According to incomplete statistics, at least 10 European and American robotics companies have quietly exited since 2024.
As the first humanoid robot company to fall, KSL’s downfall is not just a failure in entrepreneurship.
It has uncovered a crack that has long existed within the European and American robotics industry: due to the lack of a complete local supply chain, the vast majority of startups are unable to independently bear the production threshold, let alone provide competitive solutions in terms of price.
When they want to shift from “playing with models” to “real mass production”, die-casting, cold forging, tooling, supply chain… each of them becomes the last straw that crushes the camel.
Yushu, Zhongqing, Songyan Power… relying on the dense supply chain in the Yangtze River Delta, they have reduced the cost of joint modules and harmonic reducers to half of overseas prices, and the whole machine price has fallen into the range of tens of thousands of yuan. However, similar Western companies are almost unable to achieve true mass production and delivery. We cannot compete, we really cannot compete. “Benjamin also pointed out the core pain points of the European and American industries in his farewell letter.
03
Overseas star robot companies have failed in mass production, and China’s embodied intelligent robot industry is breaking through.
At the same time, the Chinese robotics industry is showing a sharp contrast between accelerated mass production and commercialization. Behind the difference in mass production between Chinese and foreign robotics companies is not simply “low-cost manufacturing”, but a gap in the industry chain that cannot be replaced by the United States.
The localization process of core components continues to accelerate, and the unit price of green harmonic reducers has dropped from 8000 yuan in 2019 to 3500 yuan in 2025, driving a 25% reduction in the cost of joint modules for humanoid robots; Yushu’s self-developed high torque density motor costs only one tenth of similar products from Boston Dynamics The advantage of the supply chain is becoming a key support for Chinese enterprises to break through.
Adequate financial reserves and clear strategic paths have enabled Chinese robotics companies to successfully avoid the “mass production is death” trap.
Data shows that the financing scale of China’s top robotics companies generally reaches the level of billions of yuan, with Zhongqing Robotics financing nearly 1 billion yuan and Yushu Technology financing about 700 million yuan, both far exceeding KSL’s financing volume.
In contrast to the financing difficulties faced by overseas robotics companies, in the first three quarters of this year, various companies related to the robotics industry chain in China have received over 600 investment events, which is more than the entire year of the previous two years.
The bankruptcy of KSL opened the curtain for the reshuffling of the humanoid robot race track.
No comment content available at the moment