- Unitree priced shares at 150.8 yuan ($22.34), valuing the company at $9 billion
- Trading expected on Shanghai’s STAR Market between August 17-21, 2026
- AI company DeepSeek invested in the IPO as a strategic partner
- The company shipped 5,500 humanoid units in 2025 on $235 million revenue
Unitree’s IPO price came in 45% higher than the market consensus of 104 yuan, signaling stronger-than-expected investor appetite for the Hangzhou-based robotics manufacturer. The company is selling 40.45 million new shares, or 10% of its enlarged share capital, on Shanghai’s STAR Market. The offering will raise approximately 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million).
The listing makes Unitree the first mainland Chinese humanoid robot maker to go public, though UBTECH Robotics has traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since December 2023. Subscriptions are scheduled for August 10, with issue results expected August 14.
Public-market valuation sits 77% below Figure AI’s private mark
Figure AI reached a $39 billion post-money valuation in September 2025 following a Series C funding round, a mark set entirely in private markets with near-zero disclosed revenue. Unitree’s public debut offers the first real-time price discovery for a profitable, volume-shipping humanoid manufacturer. The company shipped roughly 5,500 humanoid units in 2025 on $235 million of revenue with 60% gross margins, a rare financial profile in a sector dominated by pre-revenue companies.
The final price ranks Unitree third among humanoid robotics leaders—behind Figure AI ($39B) and roughly level with 1X Technologies (~$10B). What makes Unitree’s number different is that it’s set by public-market buyers, not venture negotiators. The gap between Figure’s private mark and Unitree’s exchange-set valuation raises questions about how the broader sector will price once more companies face daily scrutiny from institutional investors who can sell at will.
Unitree’s G1 humanoid sells for $13,500, far below the cost structure of most Western competitors. The company builds on China’s robotics supply chain, which delivered 610 investment deals totaling $7 billion in the first nine months of 2025 alone. That infrastructure advantage doesn’t translate directly across borders, but it does mean Unitree operates with fundamentally different unit economics than companies building equivalent hardware in the U.S. or Europe.
FCC export restrictions landed days before the IPO
The FCC added foreign-produced advanced robots to its Covered List on July 28, 2026, effectively closing access to U.S. government contracts and certain commercial markets. U.S. sales accounted for 13.3% of Unitree’s revenue last year, and the prospectus warned that U.S. tariffs, limits on government purchases, export controls or the loss of existing approvals could hurt overseas growth.
The timing isn’t coincidental. CITIC Securities estimates Unitree’s valuation could reach 50.6 billion to 55.9 billion yuan within one year of listing, which assumes continued access to export markets and sustained domestic demand. The regulatory environment makes both assumptions harder to guarantee. The FCC restriction means Unitree units won’t be an option for facilities with federal contracts or security-sensitive operations, regardless of price advantage.
Parallel to Unitree’s listing, Agility Robotics completed a $2.5 billion SPAC merger in June 2026, becoming the first U.S.-listed pure-play humanoid company. The two debuts—one in Shanghai, one via SPAC—give the market its first direct comparison between Chinese and American robotics manufacturers operating in the same category. Agility’s Digit has logged 65,000 operational hours with clients including Toyota and GXO, a deployment record that will be weighed against Unitree’s shipment volume as both companies report quarterly results.
Profitable volume production doesn’t prove general-purpose labor economics
Unitree’s current business is supported by a combination of research demand, developer adoption, early enterprise pilots, demonstrations, quadruped revenue, cost-efficient hardware and China’s unusually deep robotics supply chain. That revenue mix is real, but it’s not the same as proving that humanoid robots can replace or augment human labor at scale in factories, warehouses, or logistics centers.
The company’s G1 model features 23 to 43 degrees of freedom depending on configuration, with versions ranging from a consumer base model to an EDU Ultimate variant equipped with dual force-controlled hands and NVIDIA Jetson Orin computing. The platform is being used in university labs from Stanford to Georgia Tech, which generates sales but doesn’t validate the core use case: multi-shift operation in industrial environments where uptime, task flexibility, and total cost of ownership determine adoption.
The IPO will force that validation to happen in public. Unitree plans to use the proceeds to develop robot software and hardware, launch new products and build a manufacturing base. Those investments will show up in quarterly filings, and deployment metrics—if Unitree reports them—will either support or contradict the $9 billion valuation. Figure AI, 1X, and other private competitors can defer that scrutiny. Unitree can’t.
Unitree’s $9 billion public valuation is the first market-set price for a shipping, profitable humanoid manufacturer. That number sits 77% below Figure AI’s $39 billion private mark, and the gap matters: it shows what institutional investors are willing to pay when they can exit daily versus what venture funds will commit in locked, multi-year positions. The FCC’s July restriction eliminates Unitree from U.S. government-linked facilities, but the pricing and deployment data from both Unitree and Agility will clarify whether humanoids can deliver ROI in commercial operations—or remain a research category dressed up as an industrial product.
How does Unitree’s IPO valuation compare to other humanoid robot companies?
Unitree’s $9 billion valuation ranks third among humanoid leaders, behind Figure AI’s $39 billion private valuation and roughly level with 1X Technologies at ~$10 billion. The key difference is that Unitree’s number is set by public-market pricing on the Shanghai STAR Market, while Figure and 1X remain private with valuations determined through venture funding rounds. Unitree shipped 5,500 humanoid units in 2025 with $235 million revenue and 60% gross margins, making it the only profitable, volume-shipping company in the group.
What products does Unitree manufacture beyond humanoid robots?
Unitree manufactures high-performance quadruped robots, humanoid robots, and dexterous manipulators. The company’s quadruped lineup includes the Go1 and Go2 series, which are used for inspection, security patrol, and research applications. The G1 humanoid, launched in May 2024, now sells for $13,500 and comes in multiple configurations from a consumer base model to educational variants with advanced manipulation capabilities. The company built its reputation and early revenue on quadruped platforms before entering the humanoid market in 2023 with the H1 model.
Article Source: Unitree targets $9 billion valuation in landmark IPO as humanoid robot race accelerates
