Source | Tencent Technology
Author | Gu Lingyu
Edited by Xu Qingyang
Original title: The wealth bonanza of Unitree's IPO is destined to benefit only a few
The trillion-dollar embodied intelligence sector is undergoing intense competition between real value and inflated valuations.
Focusing on the capital spectacle surrounding Unitree’s listing, the gap between wealth creation in the primary market and the reality of the secondary market. The allocation rate is extremely low, and the initial circulating supply is minimal.
In the winter of 2017, because high-speed trains did not allow large-capacity lithium batteries, Wang Xingxing carried a robot dog,
After spending over ten hours on a train from Hangzhou to Beijing, he pitched to Sequoia China.At that time, his company was nearly unable to pay its employees’ salaries. Nine years later, Unitree Robotics is set to become China’s first humanoid robot company listed on the A-share market.
The latest update is that on August 6, Unitree Technology announced an issue price of RMB 150.80 per share, with an online roadshow on the 7th and online subscription opening on the 10th.
Many expect its market capitalization to surpass 100 billion yuan. Several secondary market professionals told Tencent Tech the same view: although stock market volatility has been high recently, Yu Shu’s IPO will still be highly scarce, “because people believe that as an industry supported by policy, the market leader is bound to rise.”
According to the prospectus, the company is offering 40.4464 million new shares, representing 10% of the total share capital after the offering.
The final offering price was set at RMB 150.80 per share on August 6, raising approximately RMB 6.1 billion, resulting in a post-offering valuation of approximately RMB 61 billion.
The online initial offering consisted of only 6.471 million shares, resulting in just 12,942 allocation numbers available for lottery across the entire market, based on 500 shares per lot—fewer than 13,000.
This means that for every 10,000 valid subscription allocation numbers, only about 2 slots are awarded.
In incomplete statistics, over 300 startups have emerged in China's embodied AI industry over the past two years.
By August this year, at least five companies had valuations exceeding 20 billion yuan, and nearly 50 companies were preparing for listings on the Hong Kong or A-share markets.
For these companies, Unitree's stock price will serve as a valuation anchor for A-shares and a valuation reference for H-shares.
This is a critical moment—yet, within this capital bonanza fueled by the concept of embodied intelligence,
A disconnect is emerging between wealth creation in the primary market and the realities of the secondary market.
01 The person who made the most money from Yutu
Wang Xingxing does not fit the typical profile of a hard tech entrepreneur—this became the basis for Unitree’s early investors’ contrarian bet.
He graduated from Shanghai University with an unremarkable resume. During early fundraising efforts, he faced repeated rejections. During the golden decade of internet model innovation,
VCs have a template for identifying talent: elite educational backgrounds, senior executives from major companies, returnee elites, or serial entrepreneurs. These factors一定程度上 guarantee a minimum standard for startup projects,
This also weeded out entrepreneurs like Wang Xingxing to some extent. Tian Jiangchuan, partner at Chuxin Capital, has publicly reflected on this experience.
At the end of 2017, Tian Jiangchuan met Wang Xingxing for the first time at a café in Hangzhou.
At the time, Unitree’s products had already demonstrated an extreme focus on cost reduction and a differentiated technological approach, but Tian Jiangchuan ultimately decided against investing.
Afterward, I reflected and realized the main issue was my “elitist arrogance”: Xingxing graduated from Shanghai University, but I believed the robotics industry required graduates from top-tier institutions.
Tian Jiangchuan later admitted that until 2020, Chuxin Capital repurchased Unitree at more than four times the original price.
An investor who has followed China's robotics sector for over a decade told Tencent Tech,
When Unitree was founded, the quadruped robot sector received little attention in China, and very few institutions had engaged with it in its early stages.
Time rewarded the earliest "contrarians." In 2016, Yin Fangming, formerly employed at MediaTek, Sogou, and Qihoo 360, invested 2 million yuan in seed funding to acquire a 15% stake in Unitree Robotics.
The post-investment valuation for this investment was only RMB 13.33 million. Today, this investment holds equity in Unitree Technologies indirectly through the holding platform Tianjin Junwan Hongyi.
Tianjin Junwan Hongyi holds a total of 3.0699% of Unitree's equity, ranking as the tenth-largest shareholder; after piercing through the structure, Yin Fangming indirectly holds approximately 0.46% of Unitree.
Based on an initial offering valuation of 4.2 billion yuan, Yin Fangming's indirectly held shares have a book value of approximately 200 million yuan, representing an overall return of about 100 times.
He had already cashed out 58 million yuan in 2025 by transferring a portion of his existing shares.
In terms of return multiples, the institution with the highest multiple of profit is Variable Capital.
This early-stage fund invested just RMB 2.09 million in Unitree Technologies' seed round in 2018, and has since achieved a return multiple of 174.62x.
Including the withdrawn portion, the total return is approximately RMB 364 million.
Sequoia China's return multiple is also impressive. Wang Xing's路演, earned from that train ride, prompted Sequoia Capital's seed fund to immediately issue a letter of intent to invest.
This $15 million investment corresponds to a post-money valuation of just $150 million.
After multiple rounds of investment, Sequoia China has invested approximately RMB 102 million and currently holds a total stake of 7.11%.
Based on an issuance valuation of 4.2 billion, its book market capitalization is approximately 2.98 billion, with an absolute amount exceeding 2.5 billion.
Meituan is the institution that earned the highest absolute amount. Through entities such as Hanhai Information and Chengdu Longzhu,
Holding 9.65% of Unitree Robotics' shares, making it the largest external institutional shareholder. Based on the issuance 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 the Series B2 round and other rounds in 2024, Meituan's book return exceeds RMB 3.6 billion.
Wang Xinyu, partner at Meituan Longzhu, met Wang Xing in his first week of work in 2016, but did not invest until 2024.
At the end of 2023, Wang Xinyu traveled to the United States to research robotics labs at top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.
These institutions, representing the world's most advanced research capabilities, are using Unitree's robot dogs for secondary development.
If the world’s best PhD students are using Unitree’s robots for cutting-edge research, won’t its AI capabilities be solved?
Wang Xinyu once said this in a media interview.
Other investors who joined in the early or mid stages also reaped substantial returns. Matrix Partners entered around the Series B valuation of approximately RMB 1.12 billion in 2022.
Currently holds a total stake of 5.45%, corresponding to a market value of approximately RMB 2.29 billion, with a book return multiple of about 45x;
Shunwei Capital first invested in January 2021 at a valuation of 380 million yuan; it currently holds a 3.98% stake, equivalent to a market value of approximately 1.67 billion yuan, with a paper return multiple of about 26x.
China CITIC Group entered in the Series B2 round in 2024 and currently holds a 4.49% stake, equivalent to a market value of approximately RMB 1.88 billion;
Shenzhen Capital Group has invested a cumulative total of approximately RMB 90 million, currently holding about 2.55%, equivalent to a market value of approximately RMB 1.07 billion, with a book return of around 10 times.
Shanghai Yuyi, as an employee stock ownership platform, holds 10.94% of the equity, equivalent 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 Technologies confirmed the closing of its Series C funding round, led jointly by China Mobile’s fund, Tencent, Jinqiu, Alibaba, Ant Group, and Geely Capital.
The post-investment valuation reached RMB 12.7 billion. Calculated from the angel round valuation in 2016, its valuation surged nearly 1,000-fold over nine years.
Prior to the IPO, the top ten shareholders collectively held 71.50% of the shares. For early investors, a $61 billion valuation is more than sufficient for them to exit successfully.
02 Primary expectation: Yuyu to surge significantly
For the primary market, Unitree's listing is crucial. Currently, the valuation of several leading unlisted embodied AI companies has reached RMB 20 to 30 billion.
Without Unitree's significant surge in the secondary market as an "anchor," subsequent high-valuation projects will be affected.
The CEO of a robotics company valued at over ten billion dollars told Tencent Technology that, just as NIO's stock price continued to decline after its listing,
This hindered XPeng’s subsequent fundraising efforts: “Although each company seems different, investors feel you’re all robots.”
They are all hoping for a significant rise in the stock price of the first company in the industry to go public.
Several executives from humanoid robotics companies told Tencent Technology that the urgency to go public is driven by the need to raise funds through coordinated primary and secondary market offerings.
Second, they are often pressured by investors: "Although it may seem these institutions have not yet reached the exit phase, as soon as one goes public,"
“Subsequently, all companies will face immense pressure from shareholders,” said the CEO of a embodied intelligence component company preparing for an IPO, speaking to Tencent Tech.
Some perspectives compare today's embodied intelligence to new energy in 2021, predicting that over 80% of companies will be eliminated in the future.
Concerns about uncertainty in the capital markets and the slow pace of real-world industry adoption have created widespread anxiety across the sector.
Investors are willing to pay a price-to-earnings ratio of 219.23 times for Unitree—far exceeding the industry average P/E ratio of 38.56 times.
——The bet is on a future where humanoid robots fully replace human labor. But currently, Unitree’s profits primarily come from robot dogs.
Unitree acknowledges in the prospectus, “During the reporting period, the company has not yet scaled the application of its proprietary general embodied large model to robotic products.
If brain technology does not make significant progress, the large-scale application of general-purpose robots remains uncertain.
In other words, the capital that funds its market value is paying for the "brain," but Unitree currently can only earn money by selling the "cerebellum."
Unitree is attempting to address this critical lesson. Of the planned fundraising of RMB 6.099 billion, a portion is specifically allocated to the intelligent robotics model development project.
This is the essential step in its transition from a hardware manufacturer to an embodied intelligence full-stack platform, and it is key to supporting its market valuation.
03 There is no consensus on level two, but the actions are honest.
If there is consensus at the primary level, that consensus has not yet achieved sustained impact at the secondary level.
In the current A-share market environment, liquidity is relatively tight, with significant capital being diverted to established value stocks and sectors such as semiconductors.
What institutional investors see as a hot opportunity in “embodied AI/Physical AI,” some secondary market funds view
It might just be a hardware company under pressure from high valuation expectations. A public market insider told Tencent Tech that there is a gap between these two lines of reasoning.
One of the sources of uncertainty following Unitree's listing.
On its first day of listing, Unitree had an extremely small free float, amplifying this emotional博弈. The total number of shares offered in Unitree's public offering was 40,446,400.
However, the initial offering to online investors amounted to only 6.471 million shares, representing 16% of the total issuance. The remaining 84% of the tokens,
Allocated to institutional investors through strategic placement (8,089,300 shares, representing 20%, locked for 12 to 24 months) and offline placement (25,886,100 shares, representing 64%).
Of the total post-issue shares of 404,464,300, only approximately 29,770,000 shares are tradable on the first day, accounting for about 7.36% of the total shares.
Over 90% of the shares were locked up on the first day of listing. Under restricted supply conditions, heightened market sentiment will significantly amplify stock price elasticity.
The aforementioned public figure told Tencent Tech that the speculation around the Yushu chain on the secondary market has consistently exhibited a typical "event-driven, spike-and-fall" pattern.
He believes that this focus on sustainability is very limited, as "prices often rise in one place and quickly return to where they started, unable to be maintained over the long term."
Taking the 2026 Spring Festival as an example, funds anticipated the hype around humanoid robots appearing on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala ahead of the holiday, driving a round of speculation.
On Lunar New Year's Eve, February 16, humanoid robots from companies such as Unitree Technology took the stage. The positive news quickly turned into capital outflows.
On the first trading day of the Year of the Horse in Hong Kong stocks on February 20, assets such as DeepRobotics and UBTECH surged sharply before quickly retracing; just a few trading days later, on February 24,
The A-share robotics concept sector suffered a sharp decline, with Wuzhou Xinchun falling more than 9% intraday and closing down 6.9%.
Core component companies such as Green Harmonic and Wanxiang Qianchao led the decline in the sector.
The process of Yushu Technology's pursuit of the STAR Market was also highly volatile. From being accepted on March 20 to receiving registration approval on July 2, it took only 104 days, setting the fastest review record on the STAR Market.
On July 2, the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved the registration of Unitree Technologies' IPO. The following day, robotics-related stocks on the A-share market surged, with over 50 stocks hitting涨停 or rising more than 10%.
However, during the first three weeks of July, as Yuyu's IPO registration took effect and the World Artificial Intelligence Conference convened intensively, the CSI Robotics Index fell 12.77% in a single week.
The Sci-Tech Innovation Board index plunged 10.5% over three days. As expectations were priced in ahead of time and fresh capital inflows dried up, capital outflows from an overcrowded market triggered a sharp decline in stock prices.
Throughout July, the total market capitalization of China's A-share market declined by over 1.2 trillion yuan, the Shanghai Composite Index fell cumulatively by 6.4%, the Shenzhen Component Index dropped sharply by 16.21%, and the ChiNext Index plunged cumulatively by 23%.
The Sci-Tech Innovation 50 Index has plunged 25.90% cumulatively, recording its largest monthly decline on record. AI-related stocks experienced their most severe month ever.
The two innovation indices fell by 23% and 25.90%, respectively, while the semiconductor index dropped over 33%.
In other words, Unitree's valuation benchmark does not actually depend on Unitree itself.
Several analysts following the robotics sector point out that Tesla remains the key driver of the entire humanoid robotics industry, drawing a parallel with the electric vehicle sector:
The widespread adoption of truly pure electric vehicles began after the mass production of the Tesla Model 3.
It was only then that awareness of pure electric vehicles changed domestically, enabling the rise of other brands. Even the Tesla ecosystem, seen as a bellwether, faces significant uncertainty.
The release of Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is expected to be delayed until the first quarter of 2026, with key upgrades focused on hand dexterity and body structure.
These ongoing design-level changes mean that the supply chain, which had been meticulously analyzed and repeatedly hyped by the market, is随时 at risk of being restarted.
Since the release of the first Optimus Prime, apart from general suppliers like Sanhua and TuoPu, the design and materials used for each joint
The suppliers and their respective values have already changed several rounds. The design we see today will differ significantly from the design that will become widespread when humanoid robots are actually adopted in the future.
It might not be the same thing at all, according to analysts.
Under this context, the aforementioned public figures believe that the key to the entire humanoid robotics sector lies in whether Tesla can unlock expectations.
If Tesla fails to meet these expectations, and its stock price continues to decline and remain sluggish, with the industry’s progress consistently falling short of expectations,Unitree will also find it difficult to achieve an independent upward trend.
Nevertheless, he said, not a single person watching Yu Shu’s new listing had disappeared.
(This article does not constitute any investment advice.)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitpushNewsCN
BitPush Telegram community: https://t.me/BitPushCommunity
BitPush TG subscription: https://t.me/bitpush