Robotera Star1: Specs, Running Speed, Price and L7

What Is Robotera?

Robotera is a Chinese embodied-AI and humanoid-robotics company founded in August 2023 in Beijing, spun out of Tsinghua University's robotics research. It is led by Professor Chen Jianyu, who directs the company's robotics and AI work.

The company's product line includes the full-size bipedal humanoid Star1, the newer and faster L7 flagship, the wheeled service humanoid Q5, the dexterous five-finger XHand1 robotic hand, and the ERA-42 AI model that Robotera uses to drive complex task execution across its robots.

Robotera has said it has started mass production and large-scale delivery, with more than 200 robots shipped globally and over half of those orders coming from overseas clients, positioning it among the more commercially active humanoid makers out of China.

Robotera Star1 Specs And Capabilities

Star1 stands roughly 5.6 feet tall and packs 55 degrees of freedom with joint torque reaching 400 Nm, which Robotera says lets it move at speeds as high as 25 radians per second at the joint level. Robotera has demonstrated Star1 running across rough terrain, including a widely shared Gobi Desert test, at up to 8 mph.

Beyond mobility, Robotera has shown Star1 performing fine dexterity demos such as using chopsticks, cooking dumplings, steaming buns, pouring wine, and toasting glasses, tasks meant to showcase hand and arm control rather than pure locomotion. The company positions Star1 for healthcare, retail, tourism, and education deployments rather than as a general consumer product.

Star1 sits in the same full-size humanoid category tracked in our humanoid robot comparison. For general background on the form factor, see our humanoid robots explainer.

• 55 degrees of freedom, joint torque up to 400 Nm.
• Off-road running speed up to 8 mph (12.8 km/h).
• Dexterity demos: chopsticks, cooking, pouring, toasting.
• Deployment focus: healthcare, retail, tourism, education.

Robotera L7: The Faster Flagship

The L7 is Robotera's newer flagship, standing about 171 cm and weighing roughly 65 kg. Like Star1, it carries 55 degrees of freedom and up to 400 Nm of joint torque, but Robotera has pushed its top running speed higher, to about 14.4 km/h, and shown it performing fluid athletic motion including 360-degree spins.

Robotera has framed L7 as evidence that its platform is scaling toward more general-purpose, athletic humanoid performance rather than a single fixed product. As with any manufacturer's own demo footage, treat the headline speed and agility figures as Robotera's claims until independently verified.

The L7's emphasis on speed and dynamic motion echoes the running and agility race among other humanoid makers we track in our robotics news hub.

Founder, Team, And Tsinghua Connection

Robotera was founded in August 2023 by Professor Chen Jianyu, a robotics and AI researcher connected to Tsinghua University, one of China's leading engineering schools. The Tsinghua lineage is a common thread among Beijing's newer humanoid startups, giving Robotera access to strong technical talent and academic robotics research.

The company is based in Beijing, placing it inside China's dense humanoid-robotics cluster alongside other Beijing- and Shenzhen-area makers. We cover that wider landscape, including Robotera's peers, in our Chinese humanoid robots country guide.

Robotera Funding And Investors

Robotera has raised capital across several rounds since its 2023 founding. A pre-Series A round in early 2024 brought in roughly $42 million, led by Crystal Stream Capital and Vision Plus Capital with participation from Alibaba Group. A subsequent Series A round of around CNY 500 million (about $70 million) was led by CDH Investments and Haier Capital.

More recently, Robotera closed a Series A+ round led by Geely Capital, with strategic participation from BAIC Capital alongside returning investors Alibaba Group and Haier Capital. That round has been reported at over $200 million, reflecting continued investor appetite for Chinese humanoid platforms with commercial delivery traction.

Backing from automakers Geely and BAIC, alongside Alibaba, signals interest from both the auto-manufacturing sector, a common early customer for humanoid labor, and China's broader tech investment ecosystem.

Can You Buy A Robotera Robot? Price

Robotera has not published consumer retail pricing for Star1 or L7. The company sells to enterprise, research, and industrial customers rather than listing a household price, and it has said over 200 units have shipped globally with the majority of orders from overseas buyers, which points to B2B and institutional sales rather than a direct-to-consumer storefront.

That mirrors most full-size Chinese humanoids right now, the exceptions being lower-cost developer platforms covered in our Chinese humanoid robots buying guide and our Unitree G1 review. If you see a specific dollar figure for Star1 or L7, treat it as unverified until Robotera confirms it publicly.

The practical takeaway: Robotera robots are being sold and delivered today, but as enterprise and institutional orders, not off-the-shelf consumer purchases with a published sticker price.