Chinese Sports Robot Company PongBot Completes Nearly 200 Million Yuan in Series A Funding
On April 13, Shanghai-based AI+ sports robotics company PongBot announced that it has completed three consecutive rounds of Series A financing totaling nearly 200 million yuan in less than half a year, with investors including Future Capital, Shenqi Capital, BlueRun Ventures, Jinqiu Fund, and Huachuang Capital.
On the same day, PongBot held an event in Shanghai to launch a limited-edition black-gold smart table tennis ball launcher.
Founded in 2019, PongBot is a subsidiary of Shanghai Chuangyi Technology Co., Ltd. Founder Haibo Zhang holds a master's degree in computer vision. After graduating in 2014, he joined SIASUN, where he served as an engineer, project manager, and department head, accumulating over 10 years of experience in sports training robot R&D. He led the development of a national team-level table tennis sparring robot, overcoming core technical challenges such as high-speed ball perception, trajectory prediction, and ball spin simulation.
Above: PongBot founder Haibo Zhang
In 2024, PongBot officially launched the PACE series of smart tennis ball launchers. The product debuted on the overseas crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and raised over $2.7 million. Additionally, during the 2025 Black Friday period, the company's overseas monthly sales exceeded tens of millions of yuan. In January this year, its latest AI tennis robot, Pace S Pro (pictured below), was unveiled at CES in Las Vegas.
The PACE series includes two models: PACE S and Pace S Pro, retailing at RMB 5,599 and RMB 7,099, respectively.
Above: PongBot Pace S Pro tennis ball launcher
To date, PongBot has over 300,000 global users, with over 1 million UGC training ball paths and over 2 billion balls launched cumulatively.
Looking ahead, PongBot has a clear overseas expansion roadmap: starting with table tennis ball launchers, it will gradually cover core markets in Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East through online e-commerce platforms and offline dealer networks. The tennis product line serves as the core category and second growth curve, targeting regions with deep tennis culture such as Europe and the Americas.
In addition, the company is simultaneously advancing multi-category expansion, exploring racket sports such as badminton and pickleball, as well as team sports like basketball and baseball.
| Source: Future Capital official press release