Unitree robotics IPO surges 629% on its Shanghai debut
Unitree Robotics opened 629% above its IPO price on Aug. 19, giving the Chinese humanoid and quadruped maker a market capitalization of about $66 billion in its Shanghai debut. Shares began trading at 1,100 yuan (about $163), compared with the 150.80 yuan offer price.
The stock pulled back to 883.9 yuan (about $131) by the midday break, according to the South China Morning Post. Unitree was still valued at roughly 357 billion yuan (about $53 billion), nearly six times its listing valuation, even as the Star Market Composite Index fell 6.1% and the Shanghai Composite dropped 2%.
Retail investors crowd into the offering
The Unitree robotics IPO raised about 6.1 billion yuan (roughly $905 million) through the sale of 40.45 million shares, equivalent to 10% of the company’s enlarged share capital. The offering valued the Hangzhou company at approximately 61 billion yuan (about $9.1 billion) before trading began.
It was the first listing by a humanoid robot maker on a mainland Chinese exchange. Nearly 9.8 million retail investment accounts competed for 9.7 million shares in the online tranche, producing a final allocation rate of just 0.018%.
DeepSeek and Tencent participated in the strategic placement alongside state backed investors including China National Petroleum, China Southern Power Grid, China Telecom, Citic Securities and the National Council for Social Security Fund.
The debut also generated substantial paper gains for existing shareholders. Founder Wang Xingxing holds about 121.4 million shares, valued at more than 107 billion yuan (roughly $15.9 billion) at midday. Meituan’s 8.7% post IPO stake was worth about 31 billion yuan (roughly $4.6 billion), representing more than 70 times its original investment.
Humanoids overtake quadrupeds in Unitree revenue
Unitree reported 2025 revenue of 1.7 billion yuan (about $252 million), more than four times the previous year’s level. Humanoids generated approximately 868 million yuan, exceeding the roughly 698 million yuan contributed by quadrupeds.
The company sold 5,215 humanoids and 23,037 quadrupeds during 2025, while overseas markets supplied more than 40% of revenue. First quarter 2026 revenue increased 68.5% from a year earlier to 423 million yuan. Unitree also said it had cumulatively produced about 18,000 bipedal humanoids across multiple models as of July.
Its latest model, called Superman, was presented shortly before the listing. Unitree claims the humanoid can jump 2 metres from a standing start and run at up to 12.66 metres per second. Those figures remain company supplied performance claims.
The trading debut establishes a public valuation reference for China’s embodied AI sector, where several private robotics companies have already exceeded valuations of 20 billion yuan. Deep Robotics, Leju Robotics, AgiBot, X Square Robot and LimX Dynamics are also pursuing public listings.
Source: share.google
