From "Walking at Night" to $400 Billion: Wang Xing's and Yushu's Early Backers' Perspective

Original Title: "Yushu's Story"
Original Author: Zhang Peng, GeekPark

Editor's Note: On August 19, Yushu Technology officially landed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, with a market value exceeding 440 billion yuan. In 2017, Zhang Peng, the founder of GeekPark and founding managing partner of Variant Capital, was the first to discover Wang Xingxing and led the angel round investment in Yushu, accompanying Yushu for 9 years.

In this article "Yushu's Story," Zhang Peng looked back on Yushu's nine-year journey from "traveling the night road" to becoming a pioneer in embodied intelligence, sharing the investment decisions behind several key milestones and his thoughts on the new generation of Chinese tech entrepreneurs. The following is the original content:

After 9 years of accompanying Yushu, I want to "distill" some meaningful things from the past for the future. Today, Yushu Technology has debuted on the stock market, achieving a market value of over 400 billion yuan.

For the booming embodied intelligence industry, Yushu has played the role of a track pioneer, setting a valuable value anchor for the entire industry.

What everyone has seen in recent years may be Yushu's extremely rapid development acceleration. However, looking back on its growth path, it is not a simple success story. From 2017 when GeekPark's Variant Capital decided to invest in Yushu's angel round until now, we have also accompanied Yushu for nine years. In my eyes, this is a process of intertwining fragility and strength, struggle and determination.

The brilliance of going public is just a moment, but I want to "distill" the past events in this long journey of accompanying Yushu, perhaps to extract some valuable and meaningful things for current and future entrepreneurs.

01 Moderately Pessimistic "Traveling the Night Road"

From a financing perspective, Yushu was born in a "wrong season."

Today, embodied intelligence and humanoid robots are thriving, but in 2017 when I met Wang Xingxing, the term "embodied intelligence" hadn't even begun to circulate, and the capital market's narrative was completely different.

Looking back now, it was a time when China's internet user growth had peaked, and the mobile internet wave was entering its final stage. However, the immense inertia of the era dragged everyone along, and they couldn't yet perceive the slowdown of that era. Business innovations being driven by "connection" logic and software, such as the sharing economy, group buying economy, and later the SaaS craze, were still the main themes that most entrepreneurs and investors were focusing on.

Although deep technology innovation had begun in that era, in the previous wave of the AI 1.0 era, there were no companies that moved as swiftly, forcefully, and agilely as in the era of the mobile internet. Instead, there were only companies that were well-funded. Therefore, deep technology had not yet become the focus of the times.

The starting point of the story was in the autumn of 2017 when I saw a very short article, a few pictures, and a video on an obscure public account. In the video, there was a robotic dog named Laikago—named after the first dog to explore space for humans. As a space enthusiast, I immediately felt a unique engineering romanticism. Of course, more importantly, the robotic dog's smooth movements surprised me.

Back in 2015, I took a group of domestic entrepreneurs to MIT, where we saw the robot cheetah developed by Professor Sangbae Kim in the Biomimetic Robotics Lab—an enormous four-legged robotic body modeled after a cheetah, covered in cables and wires, with a highly experimental feel. At that time, we all viewed it as something that might become impressive maybe in another 10 or 20 years.

Just two years later, a Chinese team in a "garage" in Hangzhou created a robotic dog that was smaller, more mature, and closer to commercialization than MIT's robot cheetah. This made me very curious, and I felt I had to meet the young minds behind this product.

I quickly found Wang Xingxing through friends in the industry and flew to Hangzhou to meet him. On October 21, 2017, I met Wang Xingxing for the first time. He was dressed in dark jeans and white Adidas sneakers, resembling a recent college graduate. His "office" was in a nondescript building in the Binjiang district of Hangzhou—not a standard office building, with adjacent factory buildings, and no company sign to be found inside. The space of about 20 to 30 square meters looked like a garage, filled with parts and two newly assembled robotic dogs.

On October 21, 2017, the first on-site meeting with Yushu Technology's robotic dog

After the robotic dog demonstration, we didn't even have a place to sit down and chat. Eventually, we found a worn-out sofa in the corridor, drank water from the nearby public water dispenser, and chatted for three hours.

Classmate Wang Xingxing had no prestigious school teachers or industry resources backing him and was basically a grassroots entrepreneur with no prior connections. At that time, there wasn't even a compelling business plan, nor was there any grand narrative of a "future billion-dollar market." However, as soon as we started discussing the product, technology, and engineering itself, he showed genuine enthusiasm and a level of understanding that surpassed his age.

At that time, Yushu's project indeed made it difficult for most institutional investors to quickly develop an investment interest. The reality was clear: 1) there was no shiny selling point from a star entrepreneur, 2) there was a lack of explosive market imagination, 3) the technology and product still had a long way to go. For such a project with "two negatives and one positive," early-stage institutions did find it challenging to get involved.

However, looking at it from a different perspective, if with the progression of digitization and intelligence, the robotics industry had the opportunity to enter a rapid development stage, especially seeing that the electric-driven technology path had demonstrated advantages far superior to hydraulic solutions, then at this juncture of industry technological transformation, Wang Xingxing might just be someone more suitable to "take the night road" before the industry dawned.

Because in that meeting, what I first felt was the powerful intrinsic drive in him—he was first and foremost a true Dreamer. If Wang Xingxing had stayed at DJI after graduation, he would have had a good development, but he decisively chose to independently work on robots. Without a strong passion and self-drive, one could not make such a choice. This kind of Dreamer's essence is somewhat tinged with "technological romanticism," as can be glimpsed from his naming of the first-generation robotic dog "Laika" to commemorate the little dog that accompanied human exploration of space.

But more remarkably, he is also a super rational and pragmatic Doer. His innate thinking is: outlining those long-term business scenarios before the technology and engineering are ready actually has no practical significance.

To be honest, it is rare to see the fusion of these two qualities in one person. Perhaps precisely because I was also an "atypical investor" back then and had seen enough types of entrepreneurs, Wang Xingxing's combination of "having both a fervent romantic ideal and being able to practically tackle engineering challenges" left me with a very good first impression.

At that time, if several technological and engineering hurdles were not overcome, the market imagination would indeed have been just wishful thinking. The only thing Wang Xingxing was sure of at the time was that research institutions would buy such a quadruped platform for research, which was possibly the only market opportunity with a chance for Product-Market Fit.

Starting from entering the field of technology media in 1998, I have had the privilege of witnessing the stories of at least a thousand entrepreneurs up close. If I were to summarize something from this "data set," the most important thing might be that "being extremely optimistic and extremely pessimistic are both a kind of poison."

An extremely optimistic person tends to create grand narratives, easily falling into the belief that "having money can do everything, the future will be better, and hard work will be enough," but often cannot break down into specific paths and cannot see which several peaks need to be conquered for victory in this battle. A highly pessimistic person, when faced with numerous technological challenges and a vague market, also struggles—this won't work, that won't work—many times even if they stumble upon a gold mine, they ultimately regretfully miss out or give up.

The first impression of Wang Xingxing happened to be right in the middle of two extremes, embodying a state of "moderate pessimism and extreme truth-seeking." With problems everywhere in sight, yet determined to pursue this venture, he had to be diligent enough and truth-seeking enough, intolerant of strategic "romanticism." In other words, he was very seriously facing the "darkness before the dawn," with no time to imagine the "brightness after the darkness."

He focused 100% of his attention on the only axis he could control—the electric propulsion technology roadmap and engineering excellence.

Using just 1% of the cost of Boston Dynamics, the industry benchmark at the time, Wang Xingxing has created the most globally competitive and well-executed products with a more advanced technological roadmap. Today, although quadrupeds and humanoids seem like something many companies can do, the reason Wutree is globally recognized as having the strongest essence in the industry is actually due to the founder's enduring characteristics and worldview. This confirms that, more valuable than "storytelling," is indeed engineering excellence and technological aesthetics.

Looking back now, even from a financing perspective, Wutree was born in a "wrong season," but from the perspective of technological evolution and startup companies, it actually landed in the "right moment."

I even feel that Wang Xingxing in 2016 and 2017, although not easily favored by capital, was at the best juncture of his entrepreneurship. If he had first worked at a large company for a few years instead of starting to "walk the night road" early, and then started a business after embodied intelligence began to gain consensus in 2023, he might not have had the opportunity to be in his current position. For quite a long time, Wutree had the best product and the most scalable revenue, but its valuation was much lower than other robotics companies. This is because it is a "no story" company, but the value of those early "night roads" it took is the most difficult to dilute.

I believe that in the future, to support more early-stage companies like Wutree that are "non-storytelling, walking the night road," we need more capital with different goals.

For example, we should thank Yin Fangming for personally providing Wang Xingxing with the initial funding of 2 million RMB. Without Yin Fangming's support, we wouldn't have seen the products developed by Xingxing. I believe that at that time, he must have also seen a young technological genius and gave him the opportunity to move forward.

We should also thank the successful entrepreneurs who invested in our inaugural Fund at Variant Capital, willing to trust our judgment on technology trends and early-stage entrepreneurs' aesthetics. They gave Variant Capital the opportunity to be one of Wutree's first institutional investors and dared to accompany us to this day.

In the earliest stage of the Wutree story, fundamentally, it was a group of entrepreneurs who knew the risks but identified more with the significance of technological innovation, gathering some energy to support a new entrepreneur. That is the most memorable scene in the story.

02 What Remains After the Passage of Time and Luck?

If you accompany a company like Ursula up close for a long enough journey, you would realize that the story they are living is not one of overnight success. All their strength comes from the belief in "self-improvement leads to great improvement."

In 2017, as an angel investment firm under GeekPark, Variable Capital was the first to offer Ursula a TS in the angel round.

The first fund of Variable Capital was quite small, and the amount we could offer was not enough to meet Ursula's funding needs for the next stage. At the same time, we knew that Ursula had no strong background or narrative. In those days, raising funds was not easy for them.

However, because Variable Capital emerged from the GeekPark entrepreneurial community, we believed that as a community, we had some accumulated capabilities beyond capital. We optimistically set a goal that besides our own investment, we must help Wang XingXing find a lead investor who could not only provide funds but also support him in technology, production capacity, and industry knowledge.

I introduced Wang XingXing to many outstanding entrepreneurs. On one occasion, we even visited a hardware industry entrepreneur whom both XingXing and I deeply respected. That communication went exceptionally well, and a TS was quickly offered as the lead investor. The company's new structure began to take shape, everything was full of hope, everything went smoothly.

But this seemingly smooth process was constantly prolonged far beyond expectations, and soon Ursula's cash flow became tight.

It was later that I found out that at that time, Wang XingXing had started using his own savings to pay employees' salaries, and he didn't even tell us. It wasn't until he couldn't hold on any longer and reached out to me that he remained calm and restrained, simply saying that the account was running low, which would affect the delivery of future products. Although this round of investment process had not been completed, he was really hoping Variable Capital could make an emergency fund transfer first.

We calculated at the time that the money we provided could not last long. Now that we were unable to close this round for a long time, there were already some obvious variables at play. And if Ursula couldn't successfully complete this entire round of financing, our money would likely be his last.

So, should we make this payment, or not? To be honest, the decision to make that payment back then was somewhat stubborn and reckless. I remember discussing it with the fund's managing partner, Wu Jiang, and finally, we slapped our thighs and decided to do it! Even if there was a risk, we believed we could help him find other investors to secure this round.

In that split second, my mentality was perhaps less like that of an investor and more like that of a partner. And after we took the lead, it probably helped boost some confidence. Later on, the other participating institutions in that round also gradually made their payments, at least helping Ursula get through this difficult time.

However, the dramatic part is that when you sense a risk, it actually happens. The lead investor, as originally planned, did not follow through in the end due to some internal reasons. We had to face reality and switch from being a lead investor to a follower, then go help Wang Xingxing raise funds. I recently revisited the conversation records between Wang Xingxing and me and found that our most discussed topic in 2018 was this.

But the dramatic reversal happened again. Although Yushu didn't raise enough in this round, these few million precisely supported their delivery and R&D. Their outstanding product quickly gained unanimous recognition in the market, and by the end of 2018, Yushu had achieved positive cash flow. At a time when we were eagerly trying to help them secure funding but hadn't succeeded yet, this company surprisingly stood on its own feet with its product. In 2019, new investors took the initiative to approach them, a new round of financing was completed, and subsequently, mainstream institutions such as Sequoia joined in.

The ultimate outcome was, of course, positive. However, we internally thoroughly reviewed the decision to prepay the funds at that time. The decision logic of "we will definitely help the entrepreneur find money" was a bit stubborn and overestimated our own abilities.

But on a more fundamental level, we reviewed why Wang Xingxing was the entrepreneur who would get us so engaged, even to the extent of adopting a partner mindset.

At that time in the robotics field, Boston Dynamics was widely regarded as the ceiling, but I felt their technological roadmap was incorrect. Not only did I confirm with Professor Kim at MIT in 2015 that electric drive was the future, but also, from GeekPark's invitation to Musk's first visit to China in 2014, to the emergence of smart electric vehicles in 2017 and 2018, you could see that electrification and intelligence were major trends, and electric drive in robotics was definitely a trend. Walking the right technological path is incredibly important. Wang Xingxing's worldview on this point is very clear.

The second supporting point is that I believe Wang Xingxing is a person who can withstand loneliness. My enduring impression is that in terms of business strategy, Wang Xingxing has shown valuable restraint. The two traps that early-stage deep tech entrepreneurs easily fall into are a bit "innately immune":

One is "not acting out of thin air to fit a narrative": Wang Xingxing not only did not make up stories himself but also did not easily "go with the flow" when guided by investors to tell a story. I still remember now, in 2018, when he was in a BP that clearly showed he had seen a lot of investors, he reluctantly wrote some potential future application scenarios for a consumer-grade robotic dog, but if you really pressed him, he would revert back to technical issues and say, "Maybe it's still too early."

The other is not choosing to "lay eggs along the way"—selling whatever you can sell or taking on a bunch of B2B custom projects just to show revenue numbers. At that time, there were companies approaching Yushu for projects, but Wang Xingxing was immune to these opportunities. These actions may seem revenue-generating, but, in fact, would burden them with heavy delivery and after-sales obligations. If they laid too many eggs along the way, the "hen" might end up exhausted.

Before the technology was mature enough to be widely generalized, Wang Xingxing firmly chose the high-quality market of universities and research institutions. This allowed him to form a healthy cash flow cycle through research orders without having to spend too much effort on market education and marketing. He was able to step up the ladder of technology step by step. I think this kind of "early-stage technology mentality of preferring milk over grass" is rare and precious.

So, in that instant decision, there was both headstrong recklessness and resolute judgment. Frankly speaking, that was the truth of that time.

What truly deserves admiration is Wang Xingxing himself. Although he said Variable Capital pulled him through his most dangerous moment, deep down, I am also very grateful to him. In that half year, relying on strong cost control and product capabilities, Wang Xingxing managed to turn the business around by himself. The phrase "Self-improvement leads to ultimate strength" found its best validation in him.

He gave us an opportunity, allowing Variable Capital to live up to the name I chose for it—the "variable" that, at a certain moment, strives to be the little bit of "variable" that helps entrepreneurs turn the tide.

Having read and written so many entrepreneurs' stories, this time we also played a meaningful role in an entrepreneur's story and accompanied them for 9 years, thereby gaining a better understanding of the essence of entrepreneurship.

Any entrepreneur cannot deny that a significant part of their success is often bestowed by the era, and some can only be explained by luck. Because in the real business world, a reasonable inference does not always lead to a definite outcome.

In the brilliant story of Wang Xingxing, what is worth pondering is, when we leave the era to the era and luck to luck, what is left that holds meaning for the entrepreneur themselves?

I believe it may be the entrepreneur's thoughts and actions that are true to their worldview, turning themselves into that seemingly insignificant variable at the time that ultimately proves to be the most crucial.

Without these, the so-called era and luck are actually meaningless.

03 The "Dynamic Instability" of Systems

If Yusys had only stayed at the success of the quadruped robot, today it might be an extremely healthy category leader with a global 70% market share, but it would have struggled to become a world-class leading company representing China's hard technology breakthrough in the embodied intelligence field.

In my opinion, Yusys' most crucial transformation occurred at the juncture of transitioning from "quadruped" to "humanoid".

Objectively speaking, when the industry began discussing humanoid robots in 2021, Wang Xingxing was very reluctant. He felt that the technical challenge of humanoid robots was a whole order of magnitude more complex than quadrupeds. In the financial situation of Yushu at the time, he did not have the capability to lead the entire industry in challenging this technological advancement by hastily creating a humanoid prototype that leaned towards "storytelling." This was not the choice Yushu should make at that stage.

By that time, Wang Xingxing had already received investment from many mainstream institutions, and there were many people advising him, with various voices around him, but Wang Xingxing remained unmoved for a long time.

It wasn't until August 19, 2021, when Musk first publicly proposed the humanoid robot project on the stage of Tesla AI Day 2021, and emphatically stated that he aimed to produce 200,000 units per year in the future. This immediately changed people's expectations for the robotics field.

In 2022, Wang Xingxing and I had been discussing Musk's Optimus Prime for a long time. Wang Xingxing said that from his understanding and observation of the product and engineering perspectives, Musk was indeed not just playing around and designed Optimus Prime for mass production. He was even somewhat shocked that Musk dared to aim for mass production despite the many technical challenges today.

As Musk's first-generation fan in China, I also judged that Musk did intend to make a breakthrough push in bipedal robots, but according to his consistent style, he definitely could not enter mass production so optimistically. Because his greatest strength is "setting ambitious technology goals based on first principles, then releasing progress bars that appear close to completion to amaze everyone, and finally steadily advancing amid continuous delays."

If the core reason Wang Xingxing chose not to develop humanoid robots before was: if he did not focus on storytelling but truly pushed the technological limits, then Yushu, with its capabilities at the time, could not lead the entire industry to challenge this issue.

However, on September 30, 2022, when the first-generation prototype of Optimus Prime was unveiled, Musk explicitly set the goal of humanoid robots in front of the world, Wang Xingxing gradually realized that the environment he was facing had begun to change: Musk had become the "trailblazer" in that industry. Therefore, Yushu had to seriously consider whether they had the ability to join the leading camp in the bipedal field. Thus, a two-person team began a small-scale attempt at bipedal robots, and the project quietly started. Wang Xingxing left himself an open-minded view of the world.

When Yushu truly started working on humanoid robots, Wang Xingxing found that the motors, joint modules, mechanical transmission, and gait control algorithms accumulated over the years on quadruped robots were not a penny wasted, as they formed the most solid foundation for bipedal humanoid robots. Yushu's first humanoid robot, once launched, also had the highest engineering completeness globally. Furthermore, Yushu's later quadruped and bipedal humanoids both continued to grow in mobility, and this path became increasingly clear.

This strategic choice was not made simply because Musk did it and it seemed like a good idea to follow suit. It is more akin to a key environmental variable influencing a company's strategic decision, requiring you to break out of inertia, reassess your choices, and shift from your past "stability" to a moment of "ferocity," transforming into an explosive force.

For example, consider this scenario: When you see GPT 3.0, or even ChatGPT, emerge, if you are an entrepreneur like Yang Zhilin, do you realize that now is the moment you must enter the scene? The environment that was previously beyond your ability to change is now naturally aligning with you. Will you seize this opportunity?

I believe this represents a critical growth transformation for Yushu. The series of decisions behind "deciding not to pursue a bipedal humanoid robot—deciding to pursue it—how to pursue it" reveal an underlying narrative-free, truth-seeking ethos, significantly enhancing dynamic thinking in response to environmental and self-capability changes.

In essence, entrepreneurship is like flying an aircraft. Early aircraft were mostly a "statically stable system," relying on their aerodynamic characteristics to automatically resist attitude disturbances, with simple controls and high fault tolerance. However, their maneuverability was capped. Later, with the maturation of digital fly-by-wire flight control systems, modern advanced fighter jets generally adopted a "statically unstable system" design. Although the control difficulty significantly increased, the maneuverability saw a qualitative improvement.

An outstanding entrepreneurial company cannot remain a consistently self-consistent "statically stable system." If you are too stable, you will be locked into your original track. Wang Xing also mentioned the importance of Musk's shout from outside the window, injecting a touch of the "statically unstable" factor into Yushu's originally extremely stable system.

Greatness inspires greatness, and courage is contagious. It is because daring and capable entrepreneurs like Musk exist in this world, and they can set the industry's direction. They inspire and assist more outstanding entrepreneurs to aim for higher goals. This is precisely what makes the entrepreneur community so fascinating and charismatic—they awaken each other, evolve together, and drive the entire era to greater heights through their mutual exploration of the future.

Through this transition from quadruped to biped, Yushu has ventured into a larger world, embracing this more challenging game. However, prior to going public, they did not take the next step to create a "universal brain." In an environment where brain technology and even data routes have not yet converged, Yushu once again assessed its boundaries, choosing to leverage its engineering product strength to achieve the pinnacle of bipedal robotics globally. This is why Yushu's humanoid robot remains the global leader in engineering deployment and productization capabilities even after its launch.

But what about after going public?

It is still a set of control logics facing more complex and dynamic variables in a "statically unstable system" — "If time does not wait for me," then be steady; "If I do not wait for time," then seize the moment.

04 Ever Onward

From the moment in 2017 when the decision was made to invest in Yushu, Wang Xing has always had an introverted and calm personality, is not good at social interaction, was embarking on his first entrepreneurial journey without having earned or spent money before, and did not have many mature entrepreneur friends around him. These were all variables that Capital felt needed some assistance. Compared to outstanding entrepreneurs I have met in the past, these all seemed to be relative "weaknesses."

During those years, as long as GeekPark held entrepreneur networking events or annual conferences, as long as Xing Xing had the time and willingness, we would take him to participate, help him showcase his product, and, more importantly, hope to facilitate some meaningful exchanges for him.

There is a photo that was later widely circulated, interpreted by many as me taking him to seek investment from big shots and failing to secure funding due to a malfunction of the robot dog on-site. This was actually a misunderstanding.

It was a December 2017 entrepreneur gathering held by GeekPark at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, attended by longtime entrepreneur friends. At that time, Xing Xing did not have the credentials to enter the main venue, so we deliberately arranged the gathering outside the venue to introduce him to some tech industry pioneers.

After everyone chatted, I asked Xing Xing to bring the robot dog over for everyone to see. The demonstration did indeed have a slight awkward moment: the robot dog got stuck and crashed when crossing the threshold, requiring an on-site reboot. Overall, everyone was quite tolerant and encouraging, but Wang Xing Xing was notably shy — I later confirmed with him that he hadn't even added one person on WeChat...

Later on, I also let go of it. At that point in time, at that node, adding someone on WeChat, creating a group chat, did not solve any immediate issues and would not change anything.

But as everyone now knows, Lei Jun invested in Yushu in 2021, Wang Xing led the investment in 2024, and even became Yushu's largest external shareholder. In that photo, indeed, sat two big shots who would later play a pivotal role in Wang Xing's subsequent development, but who could have known at the time?

Perhaps the only role that this gathering played was to set a point A, so that when Wang Xing's product was advancing, the business was growing, the team was maturing, on some day in a few years, the people at the gathering would recall how you were back then, and then take your current state as point B, connecting the memories into a line. They would truly understand and recognize you because of this—this may be the real value.

So, "It's nothing, it's everything." Whether this moment is "worthless" or a "treasure on earth" depends on the entrepreneur themselves.

Interestingly, in this photo sat several generations of outstanding Chinese entrepreneurs. As an observer who has crossed several eras, I do feel that the new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs is facing a fundamentally different environment and mission.

In the past business environment and social conditions, many believed that the advantage of Chinese entrepreneurs lay in "business model innovation" or being "followers close to the global ceiling." However, the new generation of entrepreneurs like Wang Xing and DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng, or the new ventures of experienced entrepreneurs, are completely rewriting this image: The new mission of Chinese entrepreneurs should be to break through the ceiling.

Today's China has much more wealth and resources than nine years ago, so perhaps we should more open-mindedly give more opportunities to those "non-consensus" entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs need to be discovered and understood, not molded. We don't need to change them, we don't need to forcefully package them into a certain mold, but to support them in becoming who they want to be.

Many times, it's not that entrepreneurs catch up with the times, but that the times ultimately catch up with them.

Congratulations to Yu Shu, congratulations to Wang Xing.

Also, blessings to more of the new generation of entrepreneurs who are going to "break through the ceiling," thriving and moving forward.

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