ByteDance backs China’s new humanoid robot maker in funding round

Chinese robotics startup X Square Robot has secured $143.3 million (1 billion yuan) in a Series A++ funding round led by major investors including ByteDance, HSG (formerly Sequoia Capital China), and government-backed firms such as Beijing Information Industry Development Investment Fund and Shenzhen Capital Group. Founded in 2023, X Square specializes in humanoid robots and embodied AI, aiming for applications in homes, hotels, and logistics. The company is known for its Quanta X1 and X2 wheeled humanoid robots with dexterous hands, powered by its proprietary vision–language–action (VLA) model called WALL-A. This model integrates world models and causal reasoning to enhance robots’ ability to generalize and perform complex tasks in unstructured environments without prior training. X Square’s product lineup includes the Quanta X1, a wheeled bimanual robot with 20 degrees of freedom and a working range of up to 1 meter, and the more advanced Quanta