MaHui Member Cloud Whale Raises Hundreds of Millions in New Funding as Overseas Revenue Surges Sevenfold

According to exclusive reporting from Hard Kr, Cloud Whale — a MaHui portfolio company and unicorn in the robot vacuum space — has completed a new funding round of several hundred million RMB.

Source Code Capital led Cloud Whale's Series B and has continued to increase its stake in subsequent rounds, making it a long-term backer of the company.

This article is republished from Hard Kr, written by Nan Huang, edited by Silai Yuan

In recent years, the smart cleaning hardware market has continued to expand. Driven by advances in AI large models, 5G, IoT, and rising consumer expectations for quality of life, products like robot vacuums, wet-dry vacuums, and cordless stick vacuums have seen steady growth in sales and market share — gradually becoming essential household appliances. Service robotics companies focused on smart cleaning have experienced rapid growth.

This year's Double 11 shopping festival offers a telling snapshot. By 11:59 PM on November 11, Cloud Whale's all-channel sales exceeded 1.7 billion RMB, surging 200% year-over-year and beating its sales target by over 160% — a record high for the brand. According to AVC's online e-commerce monitoring data, during this Double 11 promotion period, Cloud Whale's robot vacuum and wet-dry vacuum categories both climbed steadily in online retail market share rankings, placing in the industry top three.

Cloud Whale product image (Source/Official)

However, facing an industry-wide sales slowdown over the past year, product competition has shifted from early category dividends to battles over technology, performance, and price — increasingly showing signs of homogenization. Returning to technological innovation and deeply understanding user needs have become the key differentiators for manufacturers looking to adapt to market changes and break out.

Building on the integration of SLAM, 3D perception, AI object recognition, robotic structure design, and big data applications, Cloud Whale has focused its product line on two categories for floor cleaning scenarios: robot vacuums and wet-dry vacuums.

Cloud Whale J5 (Source/Official)

Its robot vacuum lineup includes the Xiaoyao series, J series, and R series, with price points ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 RMB. The Xiaoyao series targets high-end consumers with top-tier configurations, positioned as a fully intelligent cleaning flagship. The J series aims at the upper-mid market as a "scientific cleaning flagship" with comprehensive features and strong cleaning performance. The R series meets the cost-performance needs of budget-conscious users, covering essential daily cleaning functions. In wet-dry vacuums, Cloud Whale has launched multiple products including the S1, S1 MAX, S2, F1, and S2 Island, priced between 1,000–3,000 RMB.

On the product side, Cloud Whale has concentrated on pinpointing user pain points through real-world usage scenarios, driving technology and product iterations to continuously expand penetration. For example, in its J4 series, it introduced an innovative cyclone导流式滚刷 [aerodynamic roller brush] that achieves zero hair tangling, directly addressing a common frustration in daily life. The recently launched Xiaoyao series features a fully intelligent spatial perception system powered by Cloud Whale's proprietary dual-chip binocular architecture and Xiaoyao AI large model, enhancing the robot vacuum's adaptive dynamic cleaning capabilities and interactive intelligence.

Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 (Source/Official)

On the market front, with domestic consumer demand slowing, going global has become an imperative for Chinese service robotics companies. Cloud Whale began aggressively expanding overseas in 2023, and its international business has grown explosively. Official data shows that as of end-September this year, Cloud Whale's overseas revenue has grown nearly 7x year-over-year, with exports reaching over 30 countries and regions including North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Southeast Asia.

Cloud Whale founder and CEO Junbin Zhang told Hard Kr: "In our international expansion, our current focus is on building out online channels in key countries. Because Cloud Whale itself excels at DTC, in markets where online channels are strong, we can break in quickly."

Hard Kr understands that Cloud Whale will continue increasing its overseas investment to cover more countries and regions, with projected growth of three to four times again next year.

Cloud Whale at AWE 2024 (Source/Official)