Unitree Robotics priced its Shanghai STAR Market IPO on August 6, 2026 at 150.80 yuan per share, valuing the company at roughly 61 billion yuan ($9.04 billion) and making it mainland China’s first publicly traded humanoid robot maker. The offering will raise about 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) through 40.4 million shares, representing 10% of the company’s enlarged share capital.
Unitree, also known as Yushu Technology, shipped roughly 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025 — more than any other manufacturer globally — while also selling more than 33,000 quadruped robots cumulatively, with over 40% of revenue coming from overseas markets. Annual revenue quadrupled to 1.7 billion yuan in 2025, with humanoid robots overtaking four-legged units as the company’s largest product line at 867.8 million yuan in sales, and gross margins around 60% on core businesses, according to CNBC’s coverage of the pricing.
Why this listing matters beyond one company’s cap table
Humanoid robotics has spent roughly three years being priced almost entirely in private markets, with no publicly traded, profitable, at-scale competitor to benchmark against. That changes the moment Unitree begins trading: US rival Figure AI carries a reported $39 billion private valuation set in September 2025 on near-zero disclosed revenue, a mark that has never had to survive a quarterly earnings call. Unitree’s public listing — profitable, revenue-generating, and now subject to daily market pricing — gives investors and competitors alike a genuine reference point that simply didn’t exist before.
A record-setting approval process
Unitree’s IPO application was formally accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on March 20, 2026, and received final registration approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission just 104 days later on July 2 — the fastest full-cycle review in STAR Market history, which analysts have read as regulators signaling the strategic importance Beijing places on embodied AI. Founder Wang Xingxing and related parties will retain 31.29% of shares and 65.31% of voting rights after listing, preserving founder control despite the public offering.
A headwind the IPO has to navigate regardless of pricing
The listing lands just weeks after the US added foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots to the FCC’s national-security Covered List, a measure that closes off new sales into what would otherwise be one of Unitree’s largest addressable export markets. That timing puts real pressure on the IPO story to demonstrate demand can hold up on non-US markets alone — a test that will play out in Unitree’s actual trading performance and future export revenue, not just in its IPO-day pricing.
Secondary-market chatter has already anchored expectations well above the IPO’s base valuation, with some estimates running toward $14.8 billion once shares actually begin trading — nearly double the roughly $9 billion pricing. That gap between the disciplined IPO price and freely trading secondary expectations is itself a signal of how much pent-up investor appetite exists for a rare profitable, at-scale name in a sector still dominated by pre-revenue private companies.
What to watch next
- Where Unitree’s shares actually trade once the public subscription closes August 12, relative to the roughly $9 billion IPO valuation.
- Whether Figure AI or other private humanoid-robotics companies adjust their own valuation expectations based on Unitree’s public pricing.
- How the FCC’s Covered List restriction affects Unitree’s overseas revenue growth in subsequent quarterly disclosures now that it’s a public company.
Sources
- Unitree Robotics Plans $904 Million IPO as China’s First Humanoid Robot Maker — Bloomberg
- Chinese Humanoid Robot Maker Unitree Prices IPO at $9 Billion Valuation — CNBC
- Unitree IPO Subscription Opens: Profitable Robot Maker vs. $39B No-Revenue Figure AI — Tech Times
