BEIJING — Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group is ramping up its move into humanoid robots.

Ant has led a 500 million yuan ($73.58 million) funding round in humanoid robotics company Zeroth, the start-up announced Thursday.

It’s the 12th company in the sector that Ant has invested in since the beginning of 2025, according to CNBC analysis of PitchBook data. The investments tracked by CNBC range from humanoid robotics companies Galaxea and Unitree, to parts and software start-ups such as Linkerbot, Hypershell and Genrobot AI.

After regulators halted Ant’s giant IPO in 2020, the operator of mobile payments app Alipay has launched a healthcare services app and released its own artificial intelligence models. In late 2024, Ant also established a humanoid robot subsidiary called RobbyAnt that subsequently developed its own robot.

Ant has released an AI and robotics-friendly version of its Alipay mobile payments service, which is an area Zeroth said it would like to cooperate in.

Monolith, Geely Capital, 37 Interactive Entertainment and Hua Capital also participated in Zeroth’s latest funding round. The pre-Series A raise brings total funds raised to 1 billion yuan.

The start-up’s founder, Guo Renjie, told CNBC that Zeroth focused on securing companies with experience in industries such as smartphone chips. He said the company’s robots currently use chips from Horizon Robotics.

Zeroth Robotics, known in China as Suzhou JoyIn Intelligent Technology, was founded in late 2024.

The start-up plans a phased approach to realizing humanoid robots for the home, Guo told CNBC in an interview earlier this year. The company is starting with companionship robots for elderly care and pet care, followed by robots for children’s education, he said.

Zeroth claimed it has received orders for more than 30,000 units, and that operating revenue in the first half of the year surged 600% from a year ago.

Guo said he plans to start overseas sales in North America and Europe this fall, once the company clears local compliance requirements.

The Ant Group-led deal comes as interest in humanoid robots grows in China. Nvidia on Monday announced it was hiring for several robotics roles based in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.