Zelos Secures Over USD 300 Million in New Funding, Valuation Surpasses USD 1 Billion

Zelos has recently closed a new financing round exceeding USD 300 million, pushing its valuation beyond USD 1 billion. Based on publicly available information, this makes Zelos the first unicorn company in the RoboVan (Level-4 autonomous logistics vehicle) segment.

To date, Zelos has completed six funding rounds.

Founded in 2021, Zelos focuses on artificial intelligence and Level-4 autonomous driving technologies. Its core products are L4 autonomous urban delivery vehicles, with business centered on urban feeder transport and B2B unmanned logistics.

By the end of 2025, Zelos’ autonomous delivery vehicles had been deployed in more than 300 cities across China, and expanded into overseas markets including Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia. In October 2025, Zelos signed an order with China Post for 7,000 autonomous delivery vehicles.

In January this year, Zelos completed a strategic merger with the autonomous vehicle business of Cainiao, integrating Cainiao RoboVan operations. Following the merger, Zelos now operates under a dual-brand strategy, running both the Zelos and Cainiao RoboVan brands. The combined RoboVan fleet now exceeds 20,000 vehicles, operating in over 300 cities across more than 10 countries worldwide.

After the integration, Zelos adopted a dual-brand operating model. The Cainiao RoboVan brand is licensed to Zelos, while Cainiao itself no longer manufactures or directly sells autonomous vehicles. Leveraging its logistics technology expertise, Cainiao will focus on specific scenarios and key accounts, delivering deep intelligent supply-chain services based on RoboVan platforms. Zelos, meanwhile, will continue to advance its fully in-house, full-stack autonomous driving technology, providing intelligent mobility solutions across all scenarios.

Zelos’ autonomous vehicles help customers reduce last-mile delivery costs by approximately 50%. After deployment, express delivery franchise operators spend around USD 291–436 per vehicle per month. When accounting for vehicle costs, depreciation, and electricity, the per-parcel delivery cost has dropped from USD 0.03 to USD 0.01.

Behind its expanding partnerships, Zelos’ deployment scale has grown at an approximately tenfold annual rate. In 2023, Zelos deployed 200 vehicles, increasing to 2,000 vehicles in 2024, and surging to 20,000 vehicles by early 2026 following the Cainiao integration.

Zelos co-founder Zhou Qing previously stated that the company has already achieved break-even excluding R&D expenses, and expects to reach full profitability when the fleet scales to around 50,000 vehicles.

Currently, Zelos’ best-selling product is its first mass-produced L4 model, the Z5, which is also the industry’s first autonomous logistics vehicle with a cargo volume exceeding 5 cubic meters.

Within Zelos’ product lineup, the Z Series serves as the standard models, with cargo capacities ranging from 2 to 10 cubic meters. The lightweight E Series targets community retail and light-cargo scenarios, offering lower-cost solutions to fill gaps in lightweight applications. Meanwhile, the L Series, featuring higher payload capacity and faster charging efficiency, is designed to meet heavy-duty logistics demands.

In recent years, the unmanned logistics sector targeted by Zelos has reached a critical stage of large-scale commercialization. Over the past year, companies such as Lightwheel Intelligence and Desay SV have also entered the autonomous delivery market, intensifying competition.

Source: 36Kr