Unitree's listing on the stock market is by no means an ordinary IPO.
When Unitree's IPO guidance filing report appeared on the official website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, in that sweltering summer, the capital market seemed to be cloaked in a thought - provoking metaphor.
This is by no means an ordinary IPO.
In 2025, Unitree reached its peak moment: the robots on the Spring Festival Gala stage became a national sensation, and it was prominently listed at the private enterprise symposium. Moreover, after Zhipu Robotics "back - doored" Shangwei New Materials, the six - fold surge in the stock price pushed the entire industry into a feverish capital narrative.
The excitement in the capital market is like a collective vote, seemingly announcing that the era of humanoid robots has truly arrived.
However, behind the fanfare, there are always sober questions: when the daily rental price of Unitree robots in the rental market dropped from a high of 10,000 yuan to the range of 3,000 yuan, when the model originally priced at 99,000 yuan was nearly halved on the second - hand platform, and when the B - side performance demand was difficult to transform into C - side practical applications, there still remains an insurmountable gap between humanoid robots and truly "entering people's lives".
Unitree's move to go public at this moment is more like a sprint fraught with anxiety rather than a leisurely voyage.
More realistically, the lightweight technology has not been completely conquered, yet the battle for intelligence has quietly begun; and the silent layout of giants like Huawei deep in the industrial chain is like a sword hanging over the industry.
For Unitree, the moment of ringing the bell may not be a triumphant return but the beginning of a race to grab more chips before the giants truly enter the battlefield.
Peak Moment
Wang Xingxing was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang. He showed amazing hands - on ability from a young age and loved to tinker with various small inventions using discarded parts. In middle school, he was regarded as a "poor student" due to his uneven academic performance. However, in 2009, he was admitted to Zhejiang Sci - Tech University and became obsessed with robot manufacturing ever since. In his freshman year, he independently built a bipedal humanoid robot, showing his talent for the first time. When taking the postgraduate entrance exam, he missed out on Zhejiang University because his English score did not meet the standard and finally entered Shanghai University for postgraduate studies.
It was during his postgraduate studies from 2013 to 2015 that Wang Xingxing conquered motor drive, structural design, and control algorithms. He independently developed the low - cost and high - performance quadruped robot XDog, which reached the advanced level in the global robot academic circle at that time. He also won the first prize in a startup competition and began to make a name for himself in the industry.
In 2016, an investor advised Wang Xingxing to start a business. After careful consideration, Wang Xingxing chose to leave DJI, where he had just started working, and Unitree was born. Starting with a small team of one person, Unitree gradually grew into a robot company with hundreds of employees and a rich product line. Its representative products include the quadruped robots Laikago, Aliengo, A1, the AI - empowered Unitree Go2, and the first domestic running humanoid robot H1.
Wang Xingxing once said that the company was not optimistic about humanoid robots in the early days because of their complex control systems and high technical thresholds. However, the rapid development of large AI models, especially the technological transformation from the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023, and the concept of "embodied intelligence" that combines software and hardware, ignited the industry's enthusiasm for humanoid robots. In August 2023, Unitree officially launched its first humanoid robot.
Unitree was able to quickly enter the humanoid robot market thanks to its technological accumulation in quadruped robots. Data shows that in 2023, Unitree accounted for nearly 70% of the global quadruped robot market in terms of sales volume, making it one of the earliest companies in the world to achieve commercialization. During the Hangzhou Asian Games, Unitree's quadruped robots "went viral" for transporting discuses and javelins on the sports field, which also enhanced the public's awareness of their practical value.
This technological accumulation also gave Unitree an edge in the price war, earning it the title of "price butcher". In May 2024, the lightweight humanoid robot G1 it launched had a basic version priced at only 99,000 yuan, far lower than the industry average. Behind this is its self - research ability in core components such as motors, joints, and radars, which enables it to effectively reduce costs.
In 2025, Unitree reached its peak moment. Within one month, first, Unitree's humanoid robots performed on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, demonstrating their technological strength; on February 17, Wang Xingxing attended the highly - anticipated private enterprise symposium in Beijing, highlighting the company's influence in the industry.
Commercially, on July 11, Zhipu Robotics and Unitree won a procurement project from China Mobile worth a total of 120 million yuan. Among them, 46.05 million yuan was used to purchase Unitree's small - sized humanoid bipedal robots, computing power backpacks, and five - finger dexterous hands.
With the maturity of technology, market expansion, and accelerated commercialization, going public has become an inevitable choice for Unitree.
Capital Chasing
On July 18, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that Unitree had submitted its IPO guidance filing, and the guidance institution is CITIC Securities.
Although there are still procedures before the actual listing, for this highly - anticipated technology star, listing on the capital market is almost just a matter of time. And the capital parties that have bet on Unitree for years have finally seen the dawn of a phased return.
Unitree's financing journey began in 2016. The first investment that founder Wang Xingxing received was from Yin Fangming, a well - known investor in the circle. The symposium in Wuzhen in 2017 is still talked about in the venture capital circle:
At that time, the little - known Wang Xingxing brought Unitree's robot dog to seek financing opportunities in front of investment tycoons such as Lei Jun and Wang Xing. However, due to the unexpected incident of the robot dog tripping and crashing, the outcome was rather embarrassing.
Subsequently, the financial difficulties followed closely. It was not until 2018 that the joint investment from AnChuang Accelerator and Variable Capital injected the first "living water" of institutional capital into Unitree. In 2020, the tens of millions of yuan Pre - A round of financing participated by Sequoia China Seed Fund and DeXun Investment brought this enterprise into the sight of more investment institutions.
Regarding the description of Wang Xingxing, the first sentence in Sequoia China's report is: "He doesn't have a prestigious school background and started his business right after graduation. He is young and daring, without prominent school or work achievements as a guarantee, and lacks funds and resources. However, in the extremely difficult entrepreneurial journey, he became the one who laughed last." Sequoia internally calls such entrepreneurs "outliers".
After that, Sequoia China continued to increase its investment, and Vertex Ventures, initial Capital, etc. joined one after another. The A - round investment of tens of millions of dollars led by Shunwei Capital further consolidated Unitree's foundation. The real financing climax occurred after 2022. The B - round led by Matrix Partners and Dunhong Asset, the nearly 1 - billion - yuan B+ round participated by Meituan and Jinshi Investment, and the B++ round of financing participated by Beijing Robot Industry Investment Fund and Tencent Investment jointly pushed Unitree's valuation to 8 billion yuan in September 2024.
The popularity after the 2025 Spring Festival Gala injected both traffic and capital dividends into Unitree. The C - round of financing jointly led by giants such as the fund under China Mobile, Tencent, and Alibaba ended with a pre - investment valuation of over 10 billion yuan, paving the way for its listing.
It is worth mentioning that Zhipu Robotics in the same industry achieved a "back - door listing" on July 8 by acquiring a majority stake in Shangwei New Materials, a company listed on the STAR Market. This company founded by former Huawei executives has been very active, triggering hot discussions in the market about the capital path of embodied intelligence enterprises. In just half a month, the stock price of Shangwei New Materials soared from 7.78 yuan to 48.19 yuan, a more than six - fold increase, which shows the capital's enthusiasm for this track and also magnifies the outside world's imagination of Unitree after its listing.
However, amidst the influx of hot money, Unitree still needs to face a fundamental question: how to transform "technological show - off" into a "commercial moat"?
Commercialization Pain Points
In the intense gaze of capital, although Unitree has initially shaken off the financial dilemma, its commercialization foundation is still weak, and it is still unknown whether it can truly support the narrative logic constructed by capital.
After the appearance on the Spring Festival Gala, Unitree's humanoid robots became popular in the rental market for a while, with the daily rental price reaching over 10,000 yuan, and they were even in short supply. However, this wave of enthusiasm did not last long. According to a report by Huaxia Times, the rental market has cooled down rapidly recently. The quoted prices in Beijing have generally dropped to around 3,000 yuan, and some merchants are even offering discounts, mainly explaining that "there are more robots available".
While the rental market is cooling down, the sales market is also showing signs of weakness. A large number of transfer information has emerged on the second - hand platform. The G1 model originally priced at 99,000 yuan is now sold for only 50,000 - 60,000 yuan. Some users said that the robots are "complicated to operate" and the "novelty has worn off", while enterprise users said that they "have no more need after using them for shooting and performances".
More notably, some agents have abandoned the rental business and switched to sales. They have also expanded the sales scenarios to schools, exhibition halls, and overseas markets, and carried out secondary development of robots. This adjustment actually reflects the structural problems in Unitree's commercialization.
Firstly, the C - side demand is fragile. The traffic dividend brought by the Spring Festival Gala has not been transformed into stable consumption power. Robots are still regarded as "high - tech toys" in consumers' minds, with serious homogenization and insufficient functionality. Ordinary users are not sensitive to parameters and technical thresholds, which makes it difficult to sustain long - term purchase desire after the short - term "try - out".
Secondly, the B - side scenarios are limited. Currently, Unitree's robots are mainly used in temporary scenarios such as opening promotions, exhibitions, and annual meeting performances, which are non - essential, with low repurchase rates and poor stability. A deeper problem is that most of Unitree's revenue still comes from quadruped robots priced at over 500,000 yuan, and the customers are mainly concentrated in scientific research institutions. The self - media "Digital Intelligence Research Institute" pointed out that in 2023, over 70% of Unitree's revenue came from such B - side products, and the resale rate of consumer - grade products priced at 29,000 yuan was only 45%, and the user stickiness is worrying.
Although founder Wang Xingxing revealed at the Tianjin Davos Forum that the "annual revenue exceeds 1 billion yuan", and early investor Zhao Nan also said that the company "has been profitable since 2020", this does not mean that its business model is healthy. High - level dependence on B - side orders may bring the risk of customer concentration. Once a major customer is lost or presses for price cuts, the enterprise will face a series of reactions such as cash - flow shortages and longer payment cycles, which in turn will affect technology R & D and product iteration.
Unitree even tried to enhance its technological image by "showing off skills", such as demonstrating actions like "carp - style somersault" and "720 - degree spinning kick", and participating in fighting competitions to strengthen the perception of its technological strength. However, technology demonstrations divorced from practical applications are difficult to solve the core pain points in commercial scenarios.
The fading rental popularity, weak sales, and limited scenarios are a microcosm of Unitree's commercial difficulties. If it fails to make substantial progress in application expansion and technological breakthroughs, its commercialization story may be difficult to continue, and the patience of the capital market will eventually be tested.
What is even more worrying is that the potential entry of technology giants like Huawei into the humanoid robot field may further intensify market competition.
The Stealth Battle Before Huawei's Entry
While companies like Unitree are still struggling with the short - term difficulties of commercialization, a more far - reaching proposition has emerged: if Huawei decides to enter the humanoid robot track, this reshaping of the landscape may not be subject to the will of start - up enterprises.
To understand the potential impact that Huawei may bring to the industry, we first need to penetrate the fog of the development of this track and see the context of its technological evolution. The current humanoid robot industry is like the incubation period before the popularization of new energy vehicles: products are moving from concepts to mass production, but limited by key technological bottlenecks, they have always had difficulty truly crossing the commercialization chasm.
Among them, lightweight is the key to breaking the deadlock. It is not only about weight reduction but also related to battery life, heat dissipation, motion performance, and even the stability of components. It is a systematic threshold for large - scale implementation. For example, Tesla's Optimus reduced its weight from 73 kg to 63 kg in one year, achieving a 30% increase in walking speed. Behind this is a comprehensive innovation from the overall structure, core components to material selection.
However, for start - up enterprises like Unitree, this is a systematic resource - consuming battle. Lightweight requires interdisciplinary talents, continuous capital investment, and a stable and efficient supply chain. From material R & D, structural optimization to terminal verification, every step is costly in terms of money, manpower, and integration capabilities, and these are precisely the weaknesses of start - up enterprises.
In contrast, Huawei's greatest advantage lies not only in resources but also in its "systematic innovation" ability. From communication equipment, terminals to smart cars, Huawei has built a powerful technology stack in multiple fields and has the ability to connect the entire chain from scratch to commercialization. Moreover, the technical architectures of humanoid robots and autonomous driving are highly homologous, which creates a natural advantage for Huawei's technology transfer.
Source: Report from EqualOcean Intelligence
For example, Tesla directly applied its FSD and Autopilot algorithms to humanoid robots, and domestic car companies such as GAC, Changan, and Huawei are also trying to reuse the intelligent driving technology stack to accelerate implementation through "experience transfer". This competition of "technology translation" will determine the development speed and ceiling of intelligence in the next stage.
Source: Report from EqualOcean Intelligence
This is another trump card of Huawei. In the field of autonomous driving, Huawei has accumulated a large - scale algorithm system, chip design ability, and data processing experience, all of which can become an "accelerator" for the intelligence of human