Unitree prices $9B humanoid IPO, first in mainland China
The humanoid robot industry gets its first public-market scorecard: Unitree Robotics, the Hangzhou maker of the backflipping G1 and the robot dog that became a meme, has priced a Shanghai IPO that makes it the first humanoid company to list in mainland China.
Unitree Robotics priced its Shanghai STAR Market IPO at 150.80 yuan ($22.34) per share, setting up a roughly $900 million raise that values the company at about $9 billion — the first humanoid robotics listing in mainland China. Retail subscription opens August 10, with results due August 14 and an expected trading debut around August 19, according to Chinese media. The deal caps a record-fast process: from the exchange accepting the filing in March to regulatory approval in July took 104 days, the quickest full review in the STAR Market's history, a sign of Beijing's eagerness to bring strategic AI and robotics names to public markets.
The numbers tell a company at an inflection. Unitree's 2025 revenue reached 1.71 billion yuan, up 335 percent year over year, with a 60 percent gross margin and adjusted net profit of 600 million yuan. It shipped more than 5,500 humanoid units in 2025 — about a third of the global market and more than any other manufacturer. But growth is decelerating: first-half 2026 revenue is expected to rise only 36 to 45 percent versus 332 percent a year earlier, and adjusted profit could fall up to 22 percent as the company pours money into R&D and sales. DeepSeek is among the strategic investors, committing up to 155 million yuan.
The timing is politically loaded. Washington announced import restrictions on foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots just two days before the offering launched, effectively closing one of Unitree's largest addressable export markets; domestic policy orders — including a 10,000-unit humanoid deployment push — are expected to cushion the blow. With memory-chip maker CXMT surging 466 percent on its July 27 debut, retail enthusiasm for the STAR Market is at a fever pitch, and Unitree's first-day pop will be read as a referendum on the entire embodied-AI sector. As Omdia analyst Lian Jye Su put it, the sale is "a bellwether for how the capital markets view this exciting but nascent technology."
What to watch: the debut itself around August 19 — and whether the US import restrictions show up in the company's first quarterly report after listing.
Unitree is profitable and growing, but growth is cooling and its biggest overseas market just closed. Does the first-day pop hold, or does the bellwether wobble? Tell us in the comments.
Sources: Wall Street Journal · Investing.com · Molihua News
