Unitree's listing is likely to make Meituan and HSG the biggest winners, while DJI withdrew its capital and missed 3.7 billion yuan of floating profit.

On August 10, Unitree officially launched its offline and online subscription process. Its offering price is set at 150.80 yuan per share, with a total post-issuance market cap of around 60.993 billion yuan, total raised funds approaching 6.1 billion yuan, and a P/E ratio of 219.23x, far higher than the industry's average static P/E ratio of 38.56x.

In this wealth feast, Meituan and HSG are poised to become the largest external beneficiaries after Unitree's listing thanks to their multiple rounds of heavy investment, while DJI, which chose to divest in the early stage, may miss out on nearly 4 billion yuan in book gains.

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Unitree's prospectus shows that Meituan holds a total of 9.65% of Unitree's pre-issuance shares through three entities: Hanhai Information Technology, Galaxy Z, and Chengdu Dragon Pearl, making it the external institution with the highest shareholding ratio; HSG holds a total of 7.11% of shares through platforms including Ningbo Sequoia and Xiamen Yaheng, ranking as the second largest institutional shareholder.

Source of Unitree Robotics equity structure image: Unitree Robotics announcement

The two companies participated in multiple rounds of Unitree's financing. HSG first invested 15 million yuan to participate in capital increase in December 2019, when Unitree's post-investment valuation was only 150 million yuan, and later added 12.5 million yuan to further increase its holdings. Meituan entered the market a little later, but continued to make large capital contributions in subsequent rounds of financing.

Calculated based on the current offering price, even after the dilution of IPO shares, the equity held by Meituan and HSG still corresponds to an extremely high book market value.

Compared with the above beneficiaries, DJI appears to be quite regretful. Before founding Unitree, Wang Xingxing, the founder of Unitree, worked at DJI for a little more than two months before leaving to establish Unitree Robotics. A report from Jiemian News reviewing the audit report on Unitree issued by RSM China found that in 2018, DJI's fund DJI NewChina PE Fund-1 L.P. planned to contribute 10.1286 million yuan to participate in Unitree's second capital increase, which would hold approximately 17% of the shares after the transaction, corresponding to a post-investment valuation of about 60 million yuan at that time.

Equity status after Unitree's second capital increase in 2018 Source: RSM China audit report

DJI once completed the industrial and commercial registration and became the largest external shareholder of Unitree Robotics. However, this investment was not finally closed, and DJI chose to reduce its capital in 2019 and withdrew from the shareholder list. If DJI's investment had been fully retained until Unitree's listing, the corresponding equity market value would be about 3.7 billion yuan estimated at the offering price.

Unitree's capital reduction status in 2019 Source: RSM China audit report

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DJI has never publicly explained why it divested from Unitree, but in 2019, the company released an anti-corruption announcement, disclosing that it had dealt with 45 employees suspected of corruption and dereliction of duty, and the losses caused by corruption were conservatively estimated to exceed 1 billion yuan.

The announcement shows that in 2018, DJI carried out internal management reform, mainly sorting out internal processes, resetting approval nodes, and replacing and appointing some leadership positions. During this process, DJI accidentally discovered a large number of corrupt behaviors among R&D, procurement and quality control personnel in the supplier introduction decision-making chain. In other systems, there are also phenomena where sales, administration, after-sales and other personnel use their power to seek personal benefits.

Regarding the impact of job-related corruption on the entire industrial chain, DJI stated in the announcement, "From raw material procurement, processing of semi-finished products to the final parts available for enterprises, even if corruption in each link only increases the procurement cost by 5% to 10%, after passing through three layers of industrial chains to reach the enterprise, the cost will increase by 16% to 33% invisibly."

Reports show that the anti-corruption storm at that time completely halted the work of DJI's investment department, and all external investment projects were urgently suspended for review.

However, DJI's exit did not affect the entry of other new investors. The prospectus discloses that Matrix Partners China holds a total of 5.45% of Unitree's shares, Shunwei Capital holds 4.42%, and Goldstone Growth and Zhongzheng Investment under CITIC Securities hold a total of 4.49%, which are also expected to reap considerable floating profits. Internet and communication giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, Ant Group, and China Mobile all hold small shareholdings; state-owned industrial funds including Beijing Robotics Industry Fund, China Internet Investment Fund, and VC institutions such as Vertex Ventures China and Innoangel Fund are also listed in the shareholder register.

Unitree's strategic placement list was also disclosed simultaneously. A total of 8,089,286 strategic placement shares account for 20% of the total issuance volume, and 9 strategic investors have obtained corresponding share allocations.

Hangzhou DeepSeek under Liang Wenfeng was allocated 933,400 shares with a subscription amount of 141 million yuan, with a lock-up period of 36 months. Shanghai Qishan Investment under Tencent was allocated 903,300 shares of the same scale, and the lock-up period is implemented according to the rule of whichever is later between Tencent's shareholding time and the listing time. Central SOEs in the energy and power grid sectors have also made deep layouts in the humanoid robot track, with three enterprises, Kunlun Capital of China National Petroleum Corporation, Southern Power Grid Industrial & Financial Holdings, and Tianyi Capital, each allocated 903,300 shares.

As the sole sponsor of Unitree's IPO, CITIC Securities can obtain a sponsorship and underwriting fee of about 145 million yuan, with the per capita revenue of the sponsorship team reaching about 5.8 million yuan; at the same time, CITIC Securities will also invest 122 million yuan through strategic placement, and be allocated 808,900 shares.

CITIC Securities is also an early shareholder of Unitree, with two investments totaling about 33.45 million yuan in 2024. These two investments are expected to rise to nearly 500 million yuan after Unitree Robotics goes public, with an investment return rate of nearly 1300%.

However, risks also exist. The announcement released by Unitree Robotics on August 6 shows that the static price-to-sales ratio of the issuer after dilution in 2025 corresponding to the offering price of 150.80 yuan per share is 35.89x, which is higher than the average static price-to-sales ratio of comparable companies in the same industry in 2025; the diluted P/E ratio of the issuer in 2025 corresponding to the offering price, which is the lower value before and after deducting non-recurring gains and losses, is 219.23x, higher than the average static P/E ratio of the industry in the latest month released by China Securities Index Co., Ltd., and there is a risk that the issuer's stock price will fall in the future and cause losses to investors.

After the subscription opens on August 10, August 12 is the deadline for winning bidders to pay the subscription money, and the market is waiting for the secondary market to give the final pricing. No matter how the stock price moves after listing, Unitree is about to complete the wealth realization for its early investors.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Jiemian News", author: Song Jianan, published with authorization from 36Kr.