Standing at a new industrial development inflection point in 2026, industrial automation is undergoing a paradigm shift from “replacing humans with machines” to “human-machine convergence.” China’s collaborative robot (Cobot) industry has swept away the capital gloom of the past two years and is welcoming a dual explosion in both industry scale and financing. The underlying market logic, competitive landscape, and future evolution behind this wave of enthusiasm are worth close attention.
Market Scale: The Real Logic Behind Scale Reshaping and the “Renewed Boom”
A collaborative robot — or Cobot — refers to a robot designed to interact directly with humans within a collaborative zone. It breaks through the physical limitations of traditional industrial robots that must be confined inside protective cages, and is rapidly becoming the core vehicle for flexible manufacturing thanks to its characteristics of lightweight design, high safety, drag-teach ease of use, and deployment flexibility.
Given that China’s overall industrial robot market is at a pivotal stage of “bottoming out and recovering, with structural optimization,” collaborative robots have become a standout high-growth subcategory. Data from Gaogong Institute (GGII) shows that the collaborative robot market recorded sales of approximately 49,500 units in 2025, up 45.6% year-on-year, with the share of total industrial robots reaching a historical high. Sales are expected to break through 60,000 units in 2026, continuing the high-growth trend, reaching 190,000 units by 2030.
On the other hand, since entering 2026, multiple leading collaborative robot companies have successively announced the completion of large-scale financing rounds:
| Disclosure Date | Company Name | Round | Financing Amount | Investors |
| 2026/03/09 | Flexiv | C+ | Undisclosed | Led by Invus, with participation from Atma Capital, Aofei Group, and others |
| 2026/03/24 | FARO Robotics | C | Nearly USD 100 million (≈ KRW 140 billion) | Led by China Life Capital (under China Life Investment), with follow-on from existing shareholders including Shunwei, Source Code, and Qingliu |
| 2026/03/25 | Elite Robots | D+ | RMB 600 million (≈ USD 83.33 million, ≈ KRW 114 billion) | Multiple AIDC supply chain CVC funds, Lavender Hill Capital Partners (LHCP), Dachen Caizhí, Yuanhe Holdings, Yuanfeng Capital, Zhengzhou Embodied Intelligence Industrial Fund, and others |
| 2026/03/30 | JAKA Robotics | E | Undisclosed | Led by Dazerowan Ceyuan Venture/Lingang Digital Technology, with follow-on from Foxconn affiliate Guangyu Technology and Xingyu Co., Ltd. |
In the secondary market, Deutsche Bank recently issued a research report initiating coverage of Huayan Robotics (HK:01021) with a “Buy” rating and a target price of HKD 28.2 (representing upside of 53.3%), providing strong endorsement of the enabling role of its frameless torque motors and other core components in collaborative robots.
We believe this round of capital’s “renewed enthusiasm” for collaborative robots is far from blind trend-chasing. It is instead a resonance driven by four underlying logics.
Embodied intelligence large models urgently need mature “physical robotic arms” as vehicles for real-world deployment.
The core components of collaborative robots can be perfectly transferred to humanoid robots, generating significant valuation premiums.
High-end manufacturing’s requirements for high-precision vision and flexible force control have surged dramatically.
The broad base of SMEs in lower-tier markets have an urgent need for high-ROI and out-of-the-box automation equipment.
Competitive Landscape: A Battle Among Contenders and Differentiated Moats
As the waves wash away the sand, leading domestic manufacturers have not only captured the vast majority of the domestic market share but are also accelerating their overseas push to claim share in Europe and America. Each company has moved beyond the early-stage “price war” and is pursuing a highly distinctive path of differentiated development.
JAKA Robotics (节卡机器人): Dimensional reduction in product capability and ecosystem synergy. According to the BCC Shanglin Library, JAKA’s advantages lie in: 1) a market “sweet spot” driven by high cost-performance, possessing reliable international brand reputation while avoiding the risk of making the final user’s solution too expensive due to premium competitor products; 2) highly simplified software design (drag-and-drop operations, highly simplified interface) and support for open-source code (allowing traditional industrial programming languages such as Python and C++), significantly lowering the learning cost; 3) through an ecosystem of approximately 300 global partners, providing plug-and-play compatible solutions for third-party devices (such as end-effectors, cameras, and automated guided vehicles) without requiring additional installation steps.
AUBO Robotics (遨博智能): Scale leadership and diversified deployment. Its moat lies in extremely deep industry process accumulation, not only dominating the automotive and 3C sectors but also being a pioneer in achieving large-scale monetization in non-industrial scenarios such as health and wellness (massage therapy) and new retail (coffee and beverages).
ROKAE (珞石机器人): Strengths in underlying flexible control technology and high-precision force control, with significant advantages in high-barrier sectors including medical surgical robot bases and aerospace precision grinding.
Warsonco (华盛控): Unique advantages in parallel collaboration (Delta architecture) and in specific food and pharmaceutical sorting and packaging integration scenarios.
Dobot (越疆): The dominant player in lightweight desktop collaborative robots. According to a Xingzheng International research report, the company is also building an embodied intelligence robot platform combining “robotic arms + humanoids + hexapods” to capture all-scenario demand with a multi-dimensional platform.
Elite Robots (艾利特): Focused on high-end platform development, it is one of the main players replacing imported brands in demanding tracks requiring high stability and cycle time, such as semiconductor wafer handling and automotive component processing.
Future Development: Scenario Evolution and Technology Foresight
In real-world deployment, the applications of collaborative robots are showing a clear symphony between “core scenarios” and “emerging scenarios.”
Continuing mainstream scenarios: According to experts interviewed by the BCC Shanglin Library, “over the next three to five years, the most common growth applications will be palletizing, followed by screw fastening, inspection, and pick-and-place.” These processes are highly standardized and extremely replicable, forming the solid foundation supporting each manufacturer’s shipment volumes and cash flow.
Emerging cross-sector scenarios: “Demand for collaborative robots is growing in the food and beverage and healthcare industries. These industries require safe, easy-to-deploy robots to perform packaging, inspection, and material handling tasks.” In addition, MIR Industria’s white paper also noted that heavy industry — such as hull narrow-space welding in shipyards — has begun introducing collaborative robots to replace human labor.
At the technology level, on one hand, the high-level fusion of multimodal sensors will endow robots with greater “hand-eye coordination” capability, enabling them to handle complex processes that are extremely dependent on tactile feedback, such as dynamic assembly and flexible grinding. On the other hand, faced with the heated AI concept, the industrial community is relatively pragmatic. An article in the BCC Shanglin Library analyzes that “in the current industrial environment, AI robots are primarily used for data collection and understanding, rather than directly improving hardware output efficiency.” In standard palletizing tasks, traditional pre-programming remains the most efficient approach, and “AI-embedded software cannot achieve faster output on predefined tasks.” At the present stage, the core capability of collaborative robots equipped with large models lies in handling unstructured tasks — such as random picking in disorganized bins — and the application value of AI is not in immediately doubling hardware production capacity, but rather in “laying the foundation for future automation such as unmanned factories” and significantly shortening the deployment time for engineering design and solution generation.
[Disclaimer]: The above content reflects analysis of publicly available information, expert insights, and BCC research. It does not constitute investment advice. BCC is not responsible for any losses resulting from reliance on the views expressed herein. Investors should exercise caution.