Unitree Robotics, the best-known humanoid robot manufacturer in China, surged as much as 629% on the Shanghai STAR Market on Wednesday, making it the first IPO by a humanoid robot manufacturer on a mainland Chinese exchange and the largest first-day gain for a new listing in China this year.
The Hangzhou-based business, formally known as Yushu Technology, started at 1,100 yuan per share, up from its initial public offering (IPO) price of 150.8 yuan, momentarily valuing the company at around $66 billion. According to NBC News, shares later declined, finishing at 845 yuan, a gain of around 460%. By offering 40.4 million shares, the company raised 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million), with the retail part being oversubscribed more than 5,500 times.
A Gain for the Founder and Supporters
According to Bloomberg, the launch increased the paper wealth of 36-year-old founder Wang Xingxing by around $18 billion. About one-fifth of the business is owned by Wang. By lunchtime, Meituan, Unitree’s biggest outside stakeholder with an 8.7% post-IPO position, had seen a return of more than 70 times its initial investment.
AI startup DeepSeek, a Tencent-affiliated company, and branches of significant state-owned businesses like China National Petroleum and China Telecom were among the strategic investors in the IPO. As part of a partnership on embodied-intelligence models, DeepSeek was granted a 2.31% interest with a three-year lockup.
Ambitions for Robotics Meet Geopolitical Obstacles
One of the few profitable companies in the industry, Unitree recorded revenue of 1.7 billion yuan with a net profit of 278 million yuan in 2025 after shipping more than 5,500 humanoid robots, ranking first internationally. The business debuted its “Superman” robot on Monday, which can sprint faster than Usain Bolt’s maximum speed and jump more than two meters.
The listing takes place in conjunction with the start of the World Robot Conference, which will take place in Beijing through Sunday. However, there are obstacles ahead: the Pentagon already included Unitree on a list of Chinese military firms, and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission barred the import of new foreign-made robots in July due to national security concerns. The United States accounted for about 13% of Unitree’s sales last year.
Industry Bellwether
In a market that was generally decreasing, Unitree’s performance stood out; by lunchtime, the Shanghai Composite had fallen 2%, and the STAR Market 50 Index had fallen 6.1%. The listing is viewed by analysts as a bellwether. According to Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, “the most significant aspect of the IPO is the fact that this is going to be the bellwether for the humanoid robotics industry.” Global shipments of humanoid robots are expected to increase from 60,000 this year to 1.75 million by 2030, according to JPMorgan.
It is anticipated that a number of Chinese robotics rivals, such as Leju Robotics and AgiBot, would seek listings soon.