Unitree's IPO wealth feast is destined to be earned by only a few

Author: Gu Lingyu

Editor: Xu Qingyang

Source: Tencent Technology

In the winter of 2017, because high-speed rail prohibited carrying large-capacity lithium batteries, Wang Xingxing carried a robot dog and took a dozen hours of train from Hangzhou to Beijing to pitch to Sequoia Capital China. At that time, his company could barely afford to pay salaries.

Nine years later, Unitree Technology is about to become the first listed "humanoid robot company" on China's A-share market. The latest news is that on August 6, Unitree announced its offering price at RMB 150.80 per share, with an online roadshow on August 7 and online subscription beginning on August 10.

Many expect its market value to surpass RMB 100 billion. Several secondary market professionals told Tencent Technology the same view: despite recent extreme market volatility, Unitree's IPO subscription will remain highly sought-after, "because investors believe this is a policy-supported industry, and the leader is bound to see its stock price rise."

According to the prospectus, the company is publicly issuing 40.4464 million new shares, accounting for 10% of the total post-issuance share capital. On August 6, the final offering price was set at RMB 150.80 per share, with actual fundraising of approximately RMB 6.1 billion, corresponding to a post-issuance valuation of approximately RMB 61 billion. The initial online offering is only 6.471 million shares. Based on 500 shares per lot, there are only 12,942 lottery numbers available across the entire market—fewer than 13,000. This means that for every 10,000 valid subscription numbers, only about 2 will be allocated.

By incomplete statistics, over the past two years, more than 300 startups have been born in China's embodied intelligence industry. By August this year, at least 5 companies had valuations exceeding RMB 20 billion, and nearly 50 companies were preparing for Hong Kong or A-share listings. For these companies, Unitree's stock price will form the valuation anchor for A-shares and serve as a valuation reference for Hong Kong listings.

This is a critical moment—yet, in this capital feast propped up by the embodied intelligence concept, a rift is emerging between the wealth creation in the primary market and the realities of the secondary market.

Who Made the Most Money from Unitree

Wang Xingxing does not fit the typical profile of a hard-tech founder—this is the origin of the "contrarian" bets made by Unitree's early backers.

He graduated from Shanghai University, with an unremarkable resume. During early fundraising, he hit walls everywhere. During the golden decade of internet model innovation, VCs had a template for judging founders: elite school backgrounds, big tech executives, overseas returnees, or serial entrepreneurs. These criteria ensured a certain lower bound for startup projects, but also filtered out founders like Wang Xingxing.

Tian Jiangchuan, partner at Initial Capital, once publicly reflected on this experience. At the end of 2017, Tian met Wang Xingxing for the first time at a coffee shop in Hangzhou. At that time, Unitree's products had already demonstrated extreme cost-reduction thinking and differentiated technical paths, but Tian ultimately decided not to invest. "Looking back, the problem mainly lay in my 'elitist arrogance': Xingxing graduated from Shanghai University, and I believed the robotics industry required top-tier academic backgrounds," Tian later admitted. It was not until 2020 that Initial Capital re-entered Unitree at more than 4 times the original price.

An investor who has followed the domestic robotics track for over a decade told Tencent Technology that when Unitree was founded, the quadruped robot track had low visibility in China, and very few institutions had early exposure to it.

Time has rewarded the earliest "contrarians." In 2016, Yin Fangming, who had previously worked at MediaTek, Sogou, and Qihoo 360, made an angel investment of RMB 2 million for a 15% stake in Unitree Technology. The post-investment valuation implied by this deal was only RMB 13.33 million. Today, this investment indirectly holds Unitree shares through the shareholding platform Tianjin Junwan Hongyi. Tianjin Junwan Hongyi holds 3.0699% of Unitree overall, ranking as the tenth-largest shareholder. After look-through, Yin Fangming indirectly holds approximately 0.46% of Unitree. Based on the initial offering valuation of RMB 42 billion, the book value of Yin's indirect stake is approximately RMB 200 million, representing an overall return of about 100 times. In 2025, he had already cashed out RMB 58 million by transferring some old shares in advance.

In terms of return multiples, the institution earning the highest multiple is Variable Capital. This early-stage fund invested only RMB 2.09 million in Unitree's angel round in 2018, and has achieved a return multiple of 174.62 times to date. Combined with already-exited portions, total returns are approximately RMB 364 million.

Sequoia Capital China's return multiple is also impressive. The roadshow Wang Xingxing earned through that train ride led Sequoia's seed fund to issue a term sheet on the spot. This RMB 15 million investment corresponded to a post-investment valuation of only RMB 150 million. After multiple rounds of additional investment, Sequoia Capital China has invested a total of approximately RMB 102 million and currently holds 7.11%. Based on the RMB 42 billion offering valuation, the corresponding book market value is approximately RMB 2.98 billion, with absolute gains exceeding RMB 2.5 billion.

Meituan is the institution earning the largest absolute amount. Through entities such as Hanhai Information and Chengdu Longzhu, Meituan holds a combined 9.65% stake in Unitree Technology, making it the largest external institutional shareholder. Based on the offering valuation, Meituan's stake corresponds to a market value of approximately RMB 4.05 billion. Considering its cumulative investment of approximately RMB 400 million in rounds such as the Series B2 in 2024, Meituan's book return exceeds RMB 3.6 billion.

Wang Xinyu, partner at Meituan Longzhu, met Wang Xingxing in the first week of his formal work in 2016, but only invested in 2024. At the end of 2023, Wang Xinyu traveled to the US to research robotics labs at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and other top universities, and found that these institutions, representing the world's most cutting-edge research capabilities, were all using Unitree's robot dogs for secondary development. "If the best PhD students in the world are using Unitree's robots for the most frontier research, won't its AI capabilities be solved?" Wang Xinyu once said in a media interview.

Other investors who entered in early or mid-stages have also reaped substantial gains. Matrix Partners China entered around the Series B round in 2022 at a valuation of approximately RMB 1.12 billion, and currently holds 5.45%, corresponding to a market value of approximately RMB 2.29 billion, with a book return of approximately 45 times. Shunwei Capital first entered in January 2021 at a valuation of RMB 380 million, currently holding 3.98%, corresponding to a market value of approximately RMB 1.67 billion, with a book return of approximately 26 times. CITIC-affiliated entities entered in the Series B2 round in 2024, currently holding 4.49%, corresponding to a market value of approximately RMB 1.88 billion. Shenzhen Capital Group (SCGC) has invested a cumulative total of over RMB 90 million, currently holding approximately 2.55%, corresponding to a market value of approximately RMB 1.07 billion, with book returns of around 10 times. Shanghai Yuyi, as the employee shareholding platform, holds 10.94% of the equity, corresponding to a market value of approximately RMB 4.59 billion. Among them, 14 core employees hold approximately 5.92 million shares, with an average book market value of nearly RMB 48.9 million per person.

In June 2025, Unitree Technology confirmed the closing of its Series C financing round, co-led by funds under China Mobile, Tencent, JinQiu, Alibaba, Ant Group, and Geely Capital, with a post-investment valuation reaching RMB 12.7 billion. Based on the 2016 angel round valuation, its valuation surged nearly 1,000 times in nine years. As of before the IPO issuance, the top ten shareholders collectively held 71.50%.

For early investors, the RMB 61 billion valuation is already enough for them to exit successfully.

The Primary Market Hoping for a Unitree Surge

For the primary market, Unitree's listing is of critical importance. Currently, the leading unlisted embodied intelligence companies have reached valuations of RMB 20 to 30 billion. Without Unitree's sharp rise in the secondary market serving as an "anchor," subsequent high-valuation projects will be affected.

A CEO of a robotics company valued at over RMB 10 billion told Tencent Technology that just as NIO's stock price continued to decline after listing, which hindered XPeng's subsequent fundraising, "although each company looks different, investors think you're all just robotics companies." They are all hoping that the first listed companies in the industry will see their stock prices surge.

Several robotics company executives told Tencent Technology that humanoid robot companies are rushing to list, firstly for coordinated fundraising between primary and secondary markets, and secondly, often at the urging of capital backers. "On the surface, these institutions haven't reached their exit cycle yet, but as soon as one company lists, the subsequent companies will all face enormous pressure from their shareholders," a CEO of an embodied intelligence components company preparing for listing told Tencent Technology.

Some views compare the current embodied intelligence sector to new energy in 2021, predicting that more than 80% of companies will be eliminated. Concerns over future uncertainty in the capital markets, coupled with the slow pace of actual industrial deployment, constitute the industry's widespread anxiety.

Capital is willing to pay a 219.23x offering P/E ratio for Unitree—far exceeding the industry average of 38.56x—betting on a future where humanoid robots can comprehensively replace human labor. However, Unitree's current profitability primarily comes from robot dogs. Unitree admitted in its prospectus that "during the reporting period, the company has not yet applied its self-developed general-purpose embodied large model on a large scale to robot products. If brain technology fails to achieve significant progress, large-scale application of general-purpose robots faces uncertainty."

In other words, capital is paying for its market value based on the "brain," but Unitree currently can only make money by selling the "cerebellum."

Unitree is attempting to make up for this critical gap. Of the proposed RMB 6.099 billion in raised funds, a dedicated portion is allocated for intelligent robot model R&D projects. This is the necessary path for its transformation from a "hardware manufacturer" to an "embodied intelligence full-stack platform," and it is also the key to supporting its market value.

No Consensus in Secondary Market, But Actions Are Honest

If there is consensus in the primary market, its influence on the secondary market is not yet sustainable.

In the current A-share environment, capital is relatively tight, with traditional value stocks and sectors such as semiconductors diverting substantial funds. The "embodied intelligence/Physical AI" darling in the eyes of primary market investors may just be a hardware company facing high valuation pressure in the eyes of some secondary market funds. A public fund professional told Tencent Technology that the gap between these two logics is one source of uncertainty facing Unitree after listing.

The extremely small free float on Unitree's first day of trading amplifies this sentiment game. Unitree's total public offering is 40.4464 million shares, but the initial online offering to retail investors is only 6.471 million shares, accounting for 16% of the total offering. The remaining 84% of chips are allocated to institutional investors through strategic placement (8.0893 million shares, 20%, locked for 12 to 24 months) and offline placement (25.8861 million shares, 64%). Of the total post-issuance shares of 404.4643 million, only approximately 29.77 million shares are tradable on the first day, accounting for approximately 7.36% of total shares. Over 90% of shares are locked on the first day of listing. Under constrained supply conditions, once market sentiment runs high, stock price elasticity will be significantly amplified.

The aforementioned public fund professional told Tencent Technology that secondary market speculation on the Unitree chain has consistently exhibited a typical "event-driven, spike-then-fade" pattern. He believes this attention has very limited sustainability—"stocks often rise only to fall back to where they started, unable to maintain momentum over the long term."

Take the 2026 Spring Festival as an example. Funds speculated ahead of the holiday on the expectation that humanoid robots would appear on CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, completing a round of speculation. On February 16, New Year's Eve, humanoid robots from companies like Unitree took the stage. The realization of positive news quickly turned into capital exit. On February 20, the first trading day of the Year of the Horse on Hong Kong's stock market, targets like JAKU and UBTech surged sharply before rapidly retreating. Just a few trading days later, on February 24, the A-share robot concept sector suffered a heavy blow, with Wufang Xinchun falling over 9% intraday and closing down 6.9%, while core component companies like Leader Harmonious Drive Systems and Wanxiang Qianchao led the sector's decline.

Unitree's sprint toward the STAR Market was equally volatile. From acceptance of its application on March 20 to the registration approval on July 2, the process took only 104 days, setting a record for the fastest review on the STAR Market. On July 2, the CSRC approved Unitree's IPO registration. The next day, A-share robot concepts exploded across the board, with over 50 stocks hitting limit-up or rising more than 10%. However, in the first three weeks of July, when Unitree's IPO registration took effect and the World Artificial Intelligence Conference was in full swing, the CSI Robot Index fell 12.77% in a single week, and the STAR 50 Index plunged a cumulative 10.5% over three days. When expectations are realized in advance and the market loses incremental capital, capital flight under high crowding leads to brutal price declines.

Throughout July, A-share market value evaporated by over RMB 12 trillion. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 6.4% cumulatively, the Shenzhen Component Index fell a cumulative 16.21%, the ChiNext Index fell a cumulative 23%, and the STAR 50 Index fell a cumulative 25.90%, marking the largest single-month decline in history. AI concept stocks experienced their most brutal month, with the two STAR/ChiNext indices falling 23% and 25.90% respectively, and the semiconductor index dropping over 33%.

In other words, Unitree's valuation anchor does not actually depend on Unitree itself.

Multiple analysts covering the robotics sector point out that Tesla remains the driving force for the entire humanoid robot industry. The reasoning draws an analogy with the electric vehicle industry: pure electric vehicles only began entering people's lives after Tesla's Model 3 achieved scale production, which triggered a shift in domestic perception of EVs and enabled the rise of other brands. Yet even the Tesla supply chain, considered a bellwether, faces enormous uncertainty.

Tesla's Optimus Gen-3 release expectation has been postponed to Q1 2026, with core upgrades concentrated on hand dexterity and body structure. This continuous design evolution means that the supply chain, meticulously dissected and repeatedly speculated upon by the market, faces overhaul at any time. "From the release of the first-generation Optimus, apart from tier-1 integrators like Sanhua and Tuopu, the design materials, corresponding suppliers, and value content of every joint have already changed several times. The design we see today may be completely different from the design that will actually be used when humanoid robots become widespread," one analyst noted.

Against this backdrop, the aforementioned public fund professional believes that the entire humanoid robot sector still depends on whether Tesla can expand expectations. "If Tesla cannot expand expectations, and Tesla's own stock price keeps falling and remains depressed, with industrial progress