On 5 August 2026, Estun, a leading Chinese industrial-robot maker, announced it would use a wholly owned subsidiary to buy 100 per cent of Estun Cuzhuo Technology for 487 million yuan in cash. The eye-catching detail: the target is still loss-making, yet the valuation premium hit 901.2 per cent.
One side shows a 901 per cent appraisal gain. The other shows the acquired company’s persistent losses. Is this a far-sighted industrial fit, or a high-risk gamble?
First, the deal carries a strong related-party flavour. One Cuzhuo shareholder is Nanjing Pailestone, Estun’s controlling shareholder, holding 39.07 per cent. That means the cash flows, to some extent, from the listed company’s pocket to the controller’s pocket.
What really tightens investor nerves is the ninefold premium. The appraisal shows Cuzhuo’s net equity book value was only 48.65 million yuan as of 30 April 2026, but the assessed value reached 487 million yuan.
That high value rests on market-method logic. It prizes the target’s future profit potential and market position, not its current book assets. Cuzhuo lost 36.1 million yuan in 2024 and 53 million yuan in 2025, but its research is visible: in three years it built two generations of humanoid robots, 17 high-end collaborative robots and 4 composite mobile robots.
Strategic fill: the key piece from “heavy-load” to “embodied intelligence”. Estun’s traditional strength is heavy-load industrial robots. In 2025 its shipments led domestic brands at over 30,000 units. Cuzhuo focuses on collaborative and embodied-intelligence robots, with loads from 3 to 35 kg, for flexible manufacturing in cars, home appliances and 3C electronics.
Estun says the acquisition quickly opens a full-scene layout of “heavy-load industrial plus lightweight collaborative plus embodied-intelligence robots”. Simply put, it is a move to buy time with capital. By bringing Cuzhuo in, Estun fills gaps in high-end collaborative and humanoid robots, building a complete ecosystem across industry and smart-service scenes.
To balance the premium risk, the deal sets detailed performance promises: from May to December 2026 and from 2027 to 2029, Cuzhuo must reach cumulative revenue of no less than 620 million yuan, and its collaborative-robot segment must post cumulative net profit excluding non-recurring items of no less than 66 million yuan.
After all, Cuzhuo’s full-year 2025 revenue was only 50.17 million yuan. To leap from tens of millions to hundreds of millions in a few years depends entirely on Estun’s channel and synergy. Whether it can turn the tech reserve into steady orders and profit decides the deal’s success.
The other side of a high premium is goodwill-impairment risk. By the first quarter of 2026 Estun already carried 994 million yuan of goodwill. This deal adds more. If Cuzhuo misses its promises, a huge impairment would hit the profit statement directly.
Also, how to integrate the two tech teams without losing key talent, and how to handle potential competition with the controlling shareholder, are problems management must face.
Amid the domestic-substitution wave in industrial robots, Estun sits firmly in the top domestic seat. This costly purchase of a loss-making Cuzhuo is a key step to defend its moat in the embodied-intelligence era. Though the 901 per cent premium and the losses make it look risky, successful integration could give Estun an edge in the smart-robot race. The outcome may not be clear until the 2029 earn-out expires.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original OFweek Robotics report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience.