Chinese robotics company Unitree just had one of the wildest stock debuts of the year. Shares began trading in Shanghai on August 19. They surged more than 600% at one point during the day.
Unitree priced its IPO at 150.8 yuan per share, or about $22.34. That valued the company near $9 billion going into trading. The company raised roughly 6.1 billion yuan, close to $904 million, by issuing over 40 million shares. Retail investor demand was massive. The offering was subscribed more than 8,000 times over.
Unitree makes humanoid robots and robot dogs that have gone viral online for their agility and dance routines. The company has become a symbol of China’s push into embodied AI, where physical robots combine with AI models to move and act in the real world.
This clip shows the excitement building right before the debut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRxwcQnFQjU
The stock’s explosive first day trading sets a new benchmark for how public markets value humanoid robotics. Forbes had flagged this IPO weeks earlier as the first real test of investor appetite for a pure play robot maker. That test turned out to be a resounding yes.
China has been pushing its top tech companies to raise capital domestically rather than through US listings. Unitree’s debut fits that pattern and gives Chinese retail investors direct access to the humanoid robot boom.
The New York Times covered how this fits into a bigger trend of Chinese tech firms staying home for their public offerings.
The bigger picture here matters beyond one stock price. Humanoid robots are moving from lab demos into real commercial products faster than expected.
Unitree’s valuation jump suggests investors think physical AI, not just chatbots and software, is where a huge chunk of future value will land. Expect more robotics companies to test public markets soon, especially out of China’s fast growing embodied AI sector.
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