Pongbot

Pongbot (庞伯特) is an "AI + sports" robotics company founded in 2019 by Zhang Haibo, who previously led development of a national-team-grade table-tennis sparring robot and has over a decade of sports-training robot R&D behind him . Per a BlueRun Ventures piece, the company built a reusable "hand-eye-brain" architecture from its table-tennis origins, then pioneered the AI tennis ball-machine category — its PACE smart tennis server raised over $2.7 million on Kickstarter in October 2024 . In under half a year it closed three Series A tranches totaling nearly RMB 200 million, with BlueRun leading the A+ round and Shenqi Capital, Mingshi Capital, Jinqiu Fund and Future Capital among the backers . Its latest product, Aura — billed as the world's first all-in-one AI coaching robot covering tennis, pickleball and padel with real-time voice guidance — was on show at WRC 2026, and the ambition, in BlueRun's telling, extends beyond ball machines toward the broader multi-billion-dollar "AI + sports" market .