China’s Lingji Tianci Raises Funding for AI-Based Interactive Toys

The Beijing startup’s doll plus host model assigns each physical toy an independent AI agent with its own personality and knowledge base, a hardware-first bet against purely virtual companions.

Lingji Tianci Technology completed two rounds of financing worth tens of millions of RMB over the past year. The angel round was led by Delian Capital, with Xiaokonglong Fund and Ruisheng Fund participating. The Pre-A round was led by Implica Capital. Tanqi Capital served as exclusive financial advisor across both rounds. The company did not disclose the precise total raised.

Lingji Tianci is the developer of Jollybubu, a children’s AI toy brand built around a host plus doll interaction model. Each physical doll corresponds to an independent AI agent with its own world view, knowledge base, and personality model. When a child places a doll on the central host base, it activates story content for that character and enables role-based interactive dialogue. The host, meanwhile, continuously accumulates the child’s questions, exploration paths, and interaction preferences to enable personalized guidance over time.

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CEO Yang Bing, who has a background in children’s content and intelligent hardware, said the purely virtual companion model, where children chat directly with a virtual character, proves difficult to sustain, because children struggle to form a genuine physical connection without a fully constructed world view, character settings, and physical scenarios.

The company’s technical architecture reflects the ambition. Each doll is supported by speech recognition, speech synthesis, a character voice system, and large-model capabilities. Because a single interaction may involve continuous responses across multiple characters, the backend system must handle low-latency coordination between several agents simultaneously while maintaining each character’s distinct personality.

A companion mini-program converts the child’s interaction data, memory, emotions, operational patterns, into a virtual pet that evolves over time. A dynamic “mind map” records the topics a child has shown recent interest in, giving parents visibility into their child’s emotional state and shifting interests.

On the business model, the company has chosen to focus on hardware sales rather than recurring subscriptions, betting that a repurchase mechanism built around new dolls, new characters, and expanding content will drive long-term revenue. Jollybubu is scheduled for official launch at the end of May 2026.

Disclaimer: This news is based on publicly available information, including coverage by 36Kr published April 20, 2026. The funding amounts have not been independently confirmed by NervNow.

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