Unitree Robotics priced its initial public offering on Shanghai's STAR Market at RMB 150.80 per share on August 6, implying a market capitalization of RMB 60.99 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 219.23. Subscription opens August 10 under ticker 688836, making Unitree the first humanoid robot maker to list on the Chinese mainland — and the first public pricing anchor for the embodied AI sector.
The Offering
Unitree is issuing 40.45 million new shares, 10 percent of its enlarged share capital, raising approximately RMB 6.1 billion — well above the RMB 4.2 billion initially budgeted in its prospectus. The final price significantly overshot the market's pre-pricing consensus of around RMB 104 per share and a RMB 42 billion valuation, signaling that public-market appetite for a category leader runs ahead of private-market pricing.
About 85 percent of proceeds are earmarked for R&D. The largest single item is an intelligent robot model development project budgeted at RMB 2.02 billion, followed by robot body R&D, new product development, and a manufacturing base.
DeepSeek's 36-Month Commitment
The strategic placement list is where this IPO gets interesting. Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research — the company behind the DeepSeek foundation models — was allocated 933,400 shares worth RMB 141 million, or 2.31 percent of the offering. Its lock-up runs 36 months, matching Unitree's own employee asset-management plans and far exceeding the 12-month restrictions on the other strategic investors, which include a social security fund portfolio, Tencent's Shanghai Qishan investment arm, PetroChina's Kunlun Capital, China Southern Power Grid, and Tianyi Capital. CITIC Securities' co-investment subsidiary took 808,900 shares with a 24-month lock-up.
At the August 7 online investor meeting, founder Wang Xingxing confirmed the placement rests on a strategic cooperation memorandum between the two companies. According to CITIC Securities' verification report, the pact covers three areas: joint R&D toward artificial general intelligence, deep cooperation on high-performance general robots, and collaboration on AI foundation models. Unitree will give DeepSeek preference when procuring model-training services and technical solutions; DeepSeek will favor Unitree when buying robots and exploring embodied AI applications.
The logic is complementary. DeepSeek brings model capability — reasoning, generalization, aggressive training economics — but no physical embodiment. Unitree brings hardware: over 90 percent in-house core components and proven mass production. The 36-month lock-up reads less like a financial position than a joint roadmap commitment — the time frame in which the two Hangzhou companies intend to fuse a frontier model "brain" with a mass-produced robot body.
The Fundamentals
Unitree's prospectus shows revenue growing from RMB 159 million in 2023 to RMB 1.708 billion in 2025, a compound annual growth rate of 226.78 percent. The company crossed into profitability in 2024 and posted RMB 278 million in net profit for 2025 — a rare trajectory in a sector still dominated by losses. First-half 2026 guidance points to revenue of RMB 1.05–1.13 billion, up 35.6 to 45.4 percent year on year.
Unitree shipped 5,511 humanoid robots in 2025, claiming a 32.4 percent global market share and the top spot worldwide. Its cumulative quadruped robot sales exceed 33,000 units.
Wang Xingxing holds roughly 33 percent of the company pre-IPO and controls 68.78 percent of voting power through special voting rights; he remains the actual controller after listing, with a stake worth more than RMB 20 billion at the offer price.
Sector Context
Unitree's listing lands amid an unprecedented capitalization wave in embodied AI. Funding into China's robotics sector reached RMB 121.7 billion in the first eight months of 2026 — 67 percent more than all of 2025 — while 51 embodied-intelligence companies are queued for Hong Kong listings. At 219 times earnings against an industry static P/E of 38.56, Unitree's valuation embeds substantial growth expectations; its aftermarket performance will set the reference point for every humanoid maker that follows.
