Smart home unicorn Aqara raises 1 billion yuan in Series C funding

Recently, IoT unicorn Aqara announced the completion of a 1 billion yuan Series C funding round, with investors including Shenzhen Capital Group, Joy Capital, China Telecom Group Co., Ltd., Greenwoods Asset Management, Zhongyuan Capital, and China Unicom CICC Capital. Gaorong Ventures had previously invested in Aqara's Series A round in 2015. The new capital will be directed toward product R&D and innovation, global commercial channel development and deployment, brand building, and talent acquisition.

Aqara is among the earliest Chinese companies capable of delivering large-scale, one-stop wireless whole-home smart solutions, and one of the few domestic players with integrated B2B IoT software-hardware solutions alongside B2C whole-home smart customization services. Its products and solutions have been widely deployed across residential, apartment, hospitality, real estate, office, and eldercare sectors. To date, Aqara offers more than 30 product categories and over 500 self-developed SKUs — leading the industry in self-developed product volume nationally — and holds more than 800 patent applications. Its products are integrated into multiple ecosystem platforms including Xiaomi's Mi Home, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa, enabling interoperability with smart devices worldwide. Since pioneering offline whole-home smart customization services, Aqara has established over 600 Aqara Home smart living experience stores across China, covering 490+ cities and regions, with an offline service team exceeding 10,000 people. Aqara has become China's leading provider of digital lifestyle and smart industry solutions, with the Aqara brand established as a frontrunner in the smart home race.

Expansive Product Portfolio, Setting the Benchmark for Smart Homes

According to projections by Forward Industry Research Institute, China's smart home market is expected to reach 580.05 billion yuan in 2021. Meanwhile, as early as end-2019, China had already become the world's largest smart home consumer market, accounting for 50-60% of global consumption share. As one of the earliest entrants in smart home, Aqara has evolved from creating hit single products to a whole-home smart full-scenario layout, and pioneered a dual-engine model combining online bestsellers with offline whole-home smart 4S stores. It was also the first in the industry to propose the "decentralized hub" concept, insisting on user experience as its north star to drive industry innovation. Grounded in strong technical DNA, Aqara is committed to building elegantly designed, seamlessly interactive, and systemically stable whole-home smart products. Its portfolio spans sensors for temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, human presence, doors and windows, water immersion, smoke, natural gas, TVOC, light intensity, heart rate, respiration rate, body movement, motion and stillness, tilt, and sound — as well as smart controllers including switches, outlets, curtain motors, AC controllers, dimmers, and smart locks. Aqara products have consistently topped e-commerce platforms in both sales volume and revenue, establishing the brand as a benchmark in the smart home market.

Through this rich device ecosystem, Aqara can capture real-time environmental and human data, leveraging advanced AI and data processing algorithms to achieve truly user-aware whole-home intelligence. Additionally, through sensors and AI technology, it can monitor user health status in real time, creating an imperceptible smart health service experience.

Software-Hardware Integration, Building End-to-End AIoT Solutions

Leveraging robust underlying algorithms and application-layer software, combined with exceptional hardware capabilities, Aqara has built a leading integrated software-hardware AIoT solution. For enterprise clients, it enables private cloud services, data visualization, AI edge boxes, IoT foundational platforms, and device access management — delivering advantages in efficiency, ease of implementation, ease of operations, low cost, and high reliability. For service providers, it facilitates more efficient device debugging and scenario deployment, plus remote troubleshooting for after-sales support. End users can easily manage personalized smart homes through mobile apps.

Mature Service System Supporting B2C and B2B Growth

In 2017, Aqara became the first in the industry to propose the 4S service model for whole-home smart (Solution display, Sales, Service, and Survey/feedback), and the first to implement one-stop whole-home smart customization — delivering complete software-hardware integrated home solutions encompassing in-store experience, custom solution design, contract signing, installation and debugging, customer acceptance, and after-sales service. This mature service infrastructure has not only supported B2C household user growth, but also capitalized on national digital transformation initiatives to rapidly deploy services across B2B sectors including hospitality, real estate, office, agriculture, and eldercare. Aqara's team possesses industry-leading R&D capabilities; the company now employs over 1,000 people, with R&D staff exceeding 50% of headcount, spanning artificial intelligence, big data, app development, and cloud platform development. Founder Dennis You is a scientist in global automation and control technology, and has co-authored 224 of the company's patents.

You stated, "Going forward, Aqara will continue leading IoT technology development, delivering world-class solutions to more users, and enabling more people to experience smart homes that truly understand them. At the same time, by leveraging Aqara's advanced technology and products, we will empower more industries and contribute to carbon neutrality goals. Data shows that 40% of all energy produced by humanity is consumed by buildings, and building automation can achieve 20-40% energy savings — which actively supports national objectives around green environmental protection, energy conservation and emissions reduction, and carbon neutrality."

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