The First Humanoid Robot Company To Go Public Just Set The Price For Everyone

On August 19, 2026, Unitree Robotics began trading on Shanghai's STAR Market, becoming the first listed humanoid robot maker in mainland China. The company had priced its shares at 150.8 yuan, raising 6.1 billion yuan, about $904 million, at a valuation near $9 billion.

The market disagreed with that price immediately. Shares rose by as much as 629% to 1,100 yuan before paring gains, closing up 460% at 845 yuan and giving Unitree a market value of 342 billion yuan, roughly $50 billion. At its intraday peak, the Hangzhou company was briefly worth around $66 billion.

Demand was extraordinary. The offering was more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors, with 9.8 million retail investors competing for 9.7 million shares, producing an allocation rate of just 0.018%.

In plain terms, an industry that had only ever been priced in private funding rounds finally got a public number, and the number was enormous.

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Unitree, founded a decade ago and known for quadruped and humanoid robots that run, dance, and do backflips, is unusual in its field because it makes money. It posted 2025 revenue of 1.699 billion yuan, roughly $252 million, with net profit excluding one-off items of 590 million yuan and a gross margin above 60%.

It also ships in volume, more than 5,500 humanoids in 2025 and around 18,000 units across its full range by July 2026. Its backers include DeepSeek and Tencent, and Meituan, its largest outside shareholder, saw a return of more than 70 times its original investment.

The complication is geography. The United States banned imports of new foreign-made robots last month over national security concerns, and the U.S. accounted for 13.3% of Unitree's revenue last year.

The debut creates a benchmark. Every humanoid robotics startup, private round, and board deck now has a market-set comparison rather than a negotiated one, and that reprices the entire category upward.

The multiple is the striking part. At the peak, the stock traded at roughly 210 times sales, and the IPO itself was priced at 219 times earnings. Investors are paying for a future robot market, not current revenue.

It also validates the model. Unitree undercuts Western rivals on price, sells in volume, and turns a profit, which is a different path than the well-funded but pre-revenue approach of many competitors.

An allocation rate of 0.018% means the price reflects extreme scarcity of shares, not a careful judgment of value. First-day pops on this exchange are routinely large, and the stock surged even as China's benchmark index fell 3% that day.

The growth is also cooling. Unitree guided to first-half 2026 revenue growth of roughly 36% to 45%, a sharp deceleration from 2025. Meanwhile U.S. regulators added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices to a restricted list in July, and Unitree was placed on a Pentagon list of firms tied to China's military-civil fusion system, which constrains future products in a market that supplied a meaningful share of its sales.

The debut matters because it puts the first real price on humanoid robotics and signals how aggressively investors will fund it. The real impact depends on whether robot demand grows into a valuation built on expectation, and whether Unitree can replace the Western revenue that policy is closing off.

Disclosure: This content is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. You should always conduct your own research or consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.