Ant Group's Embodied AI Subsidiary Lingbo Technology Seeks 1.5 Billion RMB Funding
Lingbo Technology, an embodied AI subsidiary of Ant Group established in March 2025, has initiated its first funding round aiming to raise 1.5 billion RMB. The company plans to complete a second funding round by the end of this year to accelerate the development of its robotic "universal brain." This massive funding round highlights the growing commercial interest and capital influx into embodied AI, where software models are integrated with physical robotic hardware. If successful, it could accelerate the deployment of next-generation smart hardware and general-purpose robots in both industrial and household settings. Lingbo Technology recently released its LingBot 2.0 model suite, which features the LingBot-VLA 2.0 model supporting over 20 robot configurations and the LingBot-World 2.0 real-time interaction world model. However, the company's CEO noted that the industry is still in its early stages, with current deployments limited to simple environments and single-task scenarios.
## BACKGROUND
Embodied AI refers to artificial intelligence systems embedded in physical bodies that interact with the real world using sensors and actuators. Key technologies in this field include Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models, which translate visual inputs and language instructions directly into robotic actions, and world models, which help AI predict and understand physical dynamics in the real world.