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This Chinese Billionaire Wants to Put Human-Like Robots in Your Home
- James Zhou founded world’s most valuable consumer bot startup
- UBTech plans IPO in Shenzhen next year to fund home bots
Chinese robotics billionaire James Zhou scored a win this year when Tencent Holdings Ltd. helped fund his startup at a $5 billion valuation. But Zhou’s already chasing more cash. The goal? To make his singing, dancing, yoga-teaching robots more lifelike.
Zhou, 40, has lined up a string of big-name partners for his UBTech Robotics Inc. The startup’s robot-building kits for kids are sold in Apple Inc. stores. Its doll-sized bots can use Amazon.com Inc.’s virtual voice assistant Alexa. It’s made Stormtrooper bots with Walt Disney & Co. Its education bots use Tencent’s voice assistant.