Wang Xing is very happy, but Wang Xingxing is not necessarily.

The most heated discussions about Unitree's IPO all revolve around counting money.

How much Wang Xingxing's net worth has risen, how much Wang Xing of Meituan has earned, how much floating profit early investors have, and how much wealth employees have obtained.

These figures are indeed attractive and astonishing enough.

But at the listing site, I noticed another detail instead.

Wang Xingxing looked very calm.

Of course, we cannot judge a person's emotion just by a photo. But this detail does carry special meaning in the context of Unitree's IPO today.

The same listing may be two completely different things for Wang Xing and Wang Xingxing.

One of Wang Xing's bets has finally started to pay off. The company built from scratch by Wang Xingxing will start to be tested by a whole new set of rules from today.

1. Wang Xing is Delighted, Wang Xingxing is Calm

On August 19, Unitree Technology was officially listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

Issue price: 150.80 yuan

Highest intraday price: 1100 yuan

Closing price: 845 yuan

An increase of +460.34% compared to the issue price

Total market value: about 341.8 billion yuan

Wang Xingxing directly holds 23.82% of the shares. Calculated at the closing price, the market value of his holdings has exceeded 80 billion yuan.

The Meituan ecosystem is one of the important early investors of Unitree, with a total shareholding of about 9.65% at present. In addition, HSG, Matrix Partners, Tencent, Alibaba and other institutions have obtained considerable book returns in this IPO.

Thus, a standard IPO wealth creation story has emerged.

But when Wang Xingxing stood on the stage, he did not seem particularly excited.

This is actually very easy to understand.

Since he founded Unitree, his top priority has always been to build robots. Today, he suddenly finds that the company is worth more than 340 billion yuan.

For an entrepreneur, this is certainly worth celebrating.

But at the same time, another fact is also in front of us. From today onwards, Unitree's stock price every day will become a re-evaluation of Wang Xingxing's past judgments by the market.

Before the listing, the value of Unitree was mainly judged by a small number of investors, the founding team and industrial partners. After the listing, this judgment and pricing suddenly expanded to the entire market.

This is a very subtle change.

Entrepreneurs originally only needed to convince themselves and investors. Now, they need to gradually convince all shareholders.

So instead, I think Wang Xingxing's calmness today is more interesting than an excited celebratory expression.

2. What Did Wang Xing Bet On?

Looking at Wang Xing again, you will find another hidden clue.

When Meituan invested in Unitree, embodied intelligence had not yet become the star of the capital market as it is today.

At that time, there was no clear answer as to whether humanoid robots could become a real large-scale industry, unlike now.

Yet Wang Xing placed his bet at that stage.

Looking back today, this investment is undoubtedly brilliant. But if we only interpret it as Wang Xing betting on Unitree, we actually underestimate the significance of this matter.

What Wang Xing really bet on is likely whether robots, after entering the real world, will become important infrastructure for the next round of technological revolution.

This actually has a certain continuity with Meituan's past investment logic.

The Internet solves the problem of information connection. Meituan solves the connection between goods, services and people. Robots go a step further, as they deal with actions in the real world.

Delivery, handling, production, services, companionship — many actions that were completed by humans in the past are likely to be taken over by machines in the future.

If this change comes true, robots will not just be a new consumer product.

It will become a huge industry. At that point, the importance of Unitree will change.

It is not only a company, but also the first card that surfaced after Wang Xing placed his bet on this industry.

There is a very practical reason why Wang Xing deserves to be relaxed today:

He has completed the most important action at this stage: placing the bet. The person who will bear the pressure of industrial realization next is Wang Xingxing.

3. Where Does Unitree's 340 Billion Yuan Valuation Come From?

Before the IPO, the most important thing Unitree needed to prove was: can the robot be successfully developed?

It has already proved this.

Unitree has developed from quadruped robots all the way to humanoid robots, and promoted its products to the consumer market and industrial scenarios, gradually building up its capabilities in product development, manufacturing and supply chain.

In the first half of 2026, Unitree achieved revenue of 1.152 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 48.54%; the attributable net profit was 274 million yuan, turning losses into profits.

These achievements show that Unitree has crossed the stage where it only has technology but no viable business.

But the market value of 341.8 billion yuan obviously does not correspond to the revenue of 1.1 billion yuan today.

The capital market pays for the future. Therefore, the issues after the IPO have naturally shifted to a new dimension. When will Unitree be able to turn robots into a sufficiently large business?

This involves costs, production capacity, supply chains, channels, as well as the operating efficiency and repurchase logic after robots enter real scenarios. These things are not as wonderful as robots doing somersaults at press conferences, but they are the decisive factors for how far the company can go in the end.

This is especially true for humanoid robots.

Today everyone can bet that robots will eventually enter the real world. In the next few years, Unitree needs to answer with products and orders: when exactly will this future arrive?

The higher the high valuation given by the market, the faster the company needs to deliver results.

The 340 billion yuan valuation today is both a reward and an advance payment for Unitree. The money has been received in advance, but the answer is still on the way.

4. Robots Still Need to Be Sold

In the past few years, the thing that can most easily attract attention in the robotics industry is technological breakthroughs.

Robots can walk, run, jump, do somersaults, and even enter factories... Every time these capabilities appear, they will trigger a wave of public attention. Unitree happens to be one of the most important participants in this stage.

But after an industry truly matures, the focus will gradually change.

The market has become increasingly clear about what robots can do. The next more important question is: how many people are willing to buy them?

This is also one of the biggest differences between Unitree and many purely technology-focused robotics companies.

It put its products on the market very early. Consumer-grade quadruped robots such as Go2 are priced within the range that ordinary consumers can consider; humanoid robots have also started to move from laboratories to more specific application scenarios.

This means that Unitree faces a cruel question earlier than many other companies: even if the technology scores 90 points, are consumers really willing to pay for it?

A robot that can complete a wonderful demonstration does not mean it can become a stable commodity. A commodity needs controllable costs, reliability, maintenance, channels, and continuous reasons for users to buy it.

Industrial customers are more pragmatic.

After the robot is deployed, how much labor can be saved and how much efficiency can be improved will eventually be calculated in a specific account. Therefore, the most important capability for Unitree in the next stage is likely to continue to transmit its technical advantages downstream.

From R&D capabilities to sales, and then to large-scale commercial capabilities.

The sign of the real popularization of robots is never what they can do, but that more and more people feel that they also need one.

5. Wang Xingxing's Next Exam

This is also the most interesting difference between Wang Xingxing and Wang Xing today.

When Wang Xing invested in Unitree back then, he bought a possible future. Wang Xingxing, as an entrepreneur, is gradually turning this future into reality bit by bit.

After Unitree is listed today, the relationship between the two has changed a little again.

Wang Xing can enjoy the market's reward for his past judgments. Wang Xingxing, on the other hand, has to face the market's requirements for the future.

What does 340 billion yuan mean? It means that Unitree no longer only needs to prove that it is a very good robotics company.

It needs to gradually prove that:

It has the ability to become a robotics company that is fully worthy of this valuation.

The most critical change in this process is that expectations have been made public.

Startups can have a lot of room for ambiguity. The market is still being cultivated, technology is still iterating, and business models are still being explored. After listing, the room for these ambiguous statements will become smaller and smaller.

Revenue, orders, profits, and cash flow will all be important considerations. The market will eventually compress all stories into a few numbers.

For Wang Xingxing, this may be the biggest change since he started his business. He must learn to manage the expectations of a public company.

An engineer building a robot needs to solve technical problems. An entrepreneur growing a large robotics company needs to solve organizational, commercial and capital market problems. These two exams are completely different in difficulty.

6. The Weight of the First Stock

There is another change that may be more important than Unitree's own market value.

After Unitree is listed, the entire embodied intelligence industry on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board has for the first time obtained a public market benchmark.

In the past, discussing how much a robotics company is worth relied more on financing valuations, institutional models and industrial judgments. Now there is a company that is truly publicly traded.

As a result, there will be a reference point for many issues in the future.

How fast should the revenue growth of a humanoid robot company be considered fast? What level of gross profit margin is considered healthy? What scale of robot sales is needed to support a market value of tens of billions or hundreds of billions of yuan? Which business is more valuable, consumer-grade or industrial-grade?

These issues will gradually get feedback through Unitree's financial reports and stock price.

This is the special significance of the first embodied intelligence stock on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board. The higher its stock price rises, the higher the industry's expectations. The stronger its performance, the more the market believes that the robotics industry is taking shape.

Conversely, if performance delivery is slower than expected, the valuation of the entire industry may also be recalculated accordingly.

Unitree's listing today actually assumes a responsibility that goes beyond the company itself. What it needs to prove is its own commercialization capability. What the market expects to see is the establishment of a whole new industry.

7. Capital Has Moved Ahead

Looking back at today's wealth creation list, you will find that things are not that simple.

The money Wang Xing invested back then has now been re-priced by the market.

The same is true for early investors.

They took on the most uncertain risks in the robotics industry, and now they are starting to share the benefits brought by the maturity of the industry. The wealth obtained by employees is also a natural result after a company grows. All of these are worth congratulating.

It's just that Wang Xingxing is in a different position.

He cannot close the books like an investor. For the founder, the wealth realization from IPO is only a by-product. The company itself is the main body.

After today, he still needs to face product iteration, manufacturing system, talent organization, market competition and commercialization. More importantly, he has to face expectations that have been raised very high by the market.

The emotions of Wang Xing and Wang Xingxing themselves represent that two people in different positions have completely different time scales for the same IPO.

Wang Xing has seen the past ten years. Wang Xingxing has to face the next ten years.

8. After the IPO, Reality Begins

In the past few years, China's embodied intelligence industry has experienced a very intensive boom of technology, capital and entrepreneurship, with a large number of companies, talents and products pouring in.

But for an industry to be truly recognized by the capital market, a company needs to step forward to accept public pricing.

Unitree has completed this step.

From today onwards, the robotics industry is no longer just a future discussed among investors. It has a public sample that is traded every day, fluctuates every day, and is tested by the market every day. This in itself is part of the development of the industry.

Of course, the answer given by the market today is very optimistic.

A market value of 341.8 billion yuan is an extremely high expectation.

The next truly interesting thing is whether reality will catch up with this expectation.

There is still a long way to go. And the position Wang Xingxing is in right now is exactly the starting point of this road.

Words beyond the layout:

The listing of a company usually means that it finally has a public price list.

But the price is never the answer. It is just a collective bet on the future by the market at a certain moment.

Unitree got a very high valuation today.

As for whether this valuation is correct in the end, it will be verified by the products, orders and profits in the next few years.

This is also the truly interesting part for all robotics companies next:

When the capital market has begun to price them based on the future, the companies still have to go back to doing business in the present.

Standing on the stage today, Wang Xingxing may find it difficult to just be an engineer anymore.

From this moment on, what he has to face is a public company, an industry with extremely high expectations, and a group of shareholders who have already voted for the future in advance.

The IPO has sent Unitree to a new starting point.

It also puts its real problems in front of everyone for the first time.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Beyond the Layout", author: Huahua, published with authorization from 36Kr.