Unitree IPO: 174x Returns for Early VCs Amid 33% Sector Crash

Woofun AI reports that Unitree Robotics is set to become China’s first A-share stock in the humanoid robot sector, a milestone reached nine years after founder Wang Xingxing carried a robotic dog on a ten-hour train ride from Hangzhou to Beijing to pitch Sequoia China in the winter of 2017, when his company was on the verge of failing to pay employees.

The IPO mechanics reveal a stark scarcity for retail investors despite the company’s massive valuation potential. On August 6, Unitree Robotics announced an issue price of 150.80 yuan per share, followed by an online pitch on August 7 and subscription openings on August 10. Industry insiders noted that opportunities to invest will remain scarce because 'people believe that in industries supported by government policies, leading companies are bound to perform well.' The prospectus states the company plans to issue 40.4464 million new shares, accounting for 10% of the total share capital after issuance. This pricing results in approximately 6.1 billion yuan in funds raised, with a post-issuance valuation of around 61 billion yuan.

However, only 6.471 million shares were offered in the initial online offering. Assuming each subscription batch consists of 500 shares, there are only 12,942 available lottery numbers across the market—less than 13,000 in total. This means that for every 10,000 valid subscriptions, there are roughly only 2 winning shares, highlighting the extreme difficulty for individual investors to participate in this wealth creation event.

Structurally, Unitree’s listing serves as a critical valuation benchmark for the broader embodied intelligence sector. Rough estimates show that over the past two years, more than 300 startups have emerged in China’s embodied intelligence sector. As of August this year, at least five companies have a valuation of over 20 billion yuan, with nearly 50 companies preparing to list on Hong Kong or A-share markets. For these companies, Unitree’s stock price will serve as a valuation benchmark for A-share stocks and a reference point for Hong Kong stocks. This is a critical moment—yet, within this capital boom driven by the concept of embodied intelligence, a gap is emerging between wealth creation in the primary market and reality in the secondary market. The disparity suggests that while primary market valuations soar, secondary market dynamics may not sustain such levels without fundamental technological breakthroughs.

The founder’s profile defied conventional venture capital wisdom, contributing to early skepticism. Wang Xingxing does not fit the typical profile of a hard-tech entrepreneur; he graduated from Shanghai University with a relatively unremarkable background. During the golden decade of internet model innovation, VCs had clear criteria for identifying promising entrepreneurs: graduates from top universities, executives from large companies, returnees with elite backgrounds, or serial entrepreneurs. These criteria ensured a minimum standard for startup projects but also excluded entrepreneurs like Wang Xingxing. Tian Jiangchuan, a partner at ChuXin Capital, publicly reflected on this experience.

At the end of 2017, Tian met Wang Xingxing for the first time in a café in Hangzhou. At that time, Unitree’s products already demonstrated exceptional cost-saving strategies and unique technical approaches, yet Tian ultimately decided not to invest. 'In retrospect, the problem lay in my ‘elitist arrogance’: Xingxing graduated from Shanghai University, while I thought the robotics industry required a background from a top-tier institution,' Tian admitted later. It wasn’t until 2020 that ChuXin Capital reinvested in Unitree at a price more than four times higher, acknowledging the value they had initially overlooked.

Angel investor returns illustrate the immense rewards for early risk-takers. In 2016, Yin Fangming, who previously worked at MediaTek, Sogou, and Qihoo 360, invested 2 million yuan as an angel investor and acquired 15% of Unitree Robotics’ equity. The post-investment valuation of this investment was only 13.33 million yuan. Today, this investment holds Unitree Robotics’ shares indirectly through the holding platform Tianjin Junwan Hongyi. Tianjin Junwan Hongyi holds a total of 3.0699% of Unitree’s shares, ranking it as the tenth-largest shareholder.

After further tracing, Yin Fangming actually holds approximately 0.46% of Unitree’s shares indirectly. Based on an initial issuance valuation of 42 billion yuan, the book value of the shares held indirectly by Yin Fangming is around 200 million yuan, resulting in a total return rate of approximately 100 times. By 2025, he had already realized 58 million yuan by selling some of his shares, demonstrating the tangible liquidity available to early backers even before the full IPO realization.

Woofun AI data shows that Variable Capital achieved the highest return multiples among early-stage funds. This fund invested only 2.09 million yuan in Unitree Robotics’ angel round in 2018, but its return multiple has now reached 174.62 times. Including funds already withdrawn, the total return is approximately 364 million yuan. Sequoia China also achieved impressive return multiples. The pitch session that Wang Xingxing secured through that train ride prompted Sequoia China’s Seed Fund to issue an investment letter immediately.

This 15 million yuan investment corresponded to a post-investment valuation of only 150 million yuan. After several rounds of additional investments, Sequoia China has invested a total of approximately 102 million yuan, holding 7.11% of the shares currently. Based on an issuance valuation of 42 billion yuan, the corresponding book value of these shares is around 2.98 billion yuan, with an absolute amount exceeding 2.5 billion yuan, underscoring the significant wealth accumulation for institutional players who recognized the potential early.

Major institutional holders have reaped substantial absolute gains. Meituan is the institution that has earned the highest absolute amount from its investment. Through entities such as Hanhai Information and Chengdu Longzhu, Meituan holds a total of 9.65% of Unitree Robotics’ shares, making it the largest external shareholder. Based on the issuance valuation, the market value of Meituan’s shares is approximately 4.05 billion yuan.

Considering its cumulative investments of around 400 million yuan in rounds such as the B2 round in 2024, Meituan’s book return exceeds 3.6 billion yuan. Wang Xinyu, a partner at Meituan Longzhu, met Wang Xingxing in his first week of working there in 2016, but did not make an investment until 2024. At the end of 2023, Wang Xinyu traveled to the United States to research robotics laboratories at top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, and found that these institutions, representing the world’s most advanced research capabilities, were all using Unitree’s robotic dogs for further development.

'If the best doctoral students around the world are using Unitree’s robots for cutting-edge research, won’t its AI capabilities eventually be solved?' Wang Xinyu said in a media interview. Other early and mid-stage investors also benefited significantly. Matrix Partners entered the market around 2022, when the valuation was approximately 1.12 billion yuan, and currently holds 5.45% of the shares, corresponding to a market value of around 2.29 billion yuan and a book return multiple of approximately 45 times.

Shunwei Capital made its first investment in January 2021 at a valuation of 380 million yuan, currently holding 3.98% of the shares, corresponding to a market value of around 1.67 billion yuan and a book return multiple of approximately 26 times. The CITIC Group entered the market in the B2 round in 2024, currently holding 4.49% of the shares, corresponding to a market value of around 1.88 billion yuan. Shenzhen Venture Capital Group has invested a total of over 90 million yuan, currently holding approximately 2.

55% of the shares, with a book return of around 10 times. Shanghai Yuyi, as an employee stock ownership platform, holds 10.94% of the shares, corresponding to a market value of around 4.59 billion yuan. Among them, 14 key employees hold approximately 5.92 million shares, with each person having a book value of shares of nearly 48.9 million yuan, illustrating the broad-based wealth distribution among internal stakeholders.

Recent financing rounds have further concentrated shareholder value. In June 2025, Unitree Robotics confirmed the completion of its C-round financing, led by funds affiliated with Mobile, Tencent, JinQiu, Alibaba, Ant Group, and Geely Capital. The post-investment valuation reached 12.7 billion yuan. Compared to the angel round valuation in 2016, its valuation has soared by nearly 1,000 times over nine years. As of before the IPO, the top ten shareholders together hold 71.50% of the shares. For early investors, a valuation of 61 billion yuan is sufficient for them to retire successfully.

For the primary market, Unitree’s listing is of paramount importance. Currently, the valuations of several leading unlisted embodied intelligence companies have reached 20 to 30 billion yuan. Without Unitree’s sharp rise in the secondary market serving as a 'benchmark,' subsequent high-valued projects will be affected. The CEO of a robotics company with a valuation of over 10 billion yuan stated that, just as NIO’s stock price declined after its listing, causing difficulties for Xpeng in raising funds later, 'although each company seems different, investors view them all as robotics companies.'

They are all hoping that the stocks of companies that list first in the industry will soar in price. Several robotics company executives noted that humanoid robots are eager to go public for two reasons: one is to raise funds through linkage between the primary and secondary markets, and the other is often due to pressure from investors. 'On the surface, it may seem that these institutions haven’t reached their exit timeline, but once one company lists, subsequent companies will face immense pressure from their shareholders,' said the CEO of an embodied intelligence components company preparing for an IPO.

Market volatility and technical gaps pose significant risks to sustained growth. Some views compare the current embodied intelligence sector to the new energy industry in 2021, predicting that over 80% of companies will be eliminated in the future. Concerns about future uncertainty in the capital market, combined with the slow pace of actual industry development, have created widespread anxiety in the sector. Capital is willing to pay a P/E ratio of 219.23 times for Unitree—far exceeding the industry average of 38.56 times—betting on a future where humanoid robots can fully replace human labor.

However, at present, Unitree’s profits mainly come from its robotic dogs. Unitree admits in its prospectus that 'the company has not yet applied its self-developed general embodied large models on a large scale to robot products. If significant progress is not made in brain technology, the large-scale application of general robots remains uncertain.' In other words, what capital is paying for in terms of market cap is the 'brain,' but Unitree can currently only make money by selling 'small brains.' Unitree is trying to address this critical gap. Of the 6.

099 billion yuan it plans to raise, a portion is earmarked for research and development of intelligent robot models. This is essential for its transition from a 'hardware manufacturer' to a 'full-stack embodied intelligence platform' and is crucial to supporting its market cap. If there is consensus in the primary market, its impact in the secondary market is not yet sustainable. In the current A-share market environment, capital is relatively tight, with many funds flowing away from established value stocks and semiconductor sectors.

What investors in the primary market see as a hot topic in 'embodied intelligence/Physical AI' may merely be a hardware company under pressure from high valuations in the eyes of some secondary market investors. An institutional investor noted that the disparity between these two perspectives is one of the sources of uncertainty facing Unitree after its listing. On the first day of trading after listing, the liquidity of Unitree’s shares was extremely low, amplifying this emotional struggle. Unitree Robotics plans to issue a total of 40.4464 million shares in this public offering, but only 6.

4710 million shares will be available to online investors initially, accounting for 16% of the total issuance. The remaining 84% of the shares will be allocated to institutional investors through strategic placements (8.0893 million shares, or 20%, locked for 12 to 24 months) and offline placements (25.8861 million shares, or 64%). Of the total share capital of 404.4643 million shares after the issuance, only approximately 29.77 million shares will be tradable on the first day, accounting for about 7.36% of the total share capital.

Over 90% of the shares will be locked on the first day of trading. Under conditions of limited supply, if market sentiment becomes bullish, stock price volatility will be significantly amplified. The aforementioned institutional investor noted that speculation in Unitree’s stocks in the secondary market has always shown typical 'event-driven, sharp rises followed by declines' patterns. He believes that such interest is short-lived, 'as prices usually return to where they started and cannot be sustained in the long term.' Take the Spring Festival in 2026 as an example.

Investors speculated in advance about humanoid robots appearing on CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala, triggering a wave of speculation. On New Year’s Eve, February 16, humanoid robots from companies including Unitree Robotics made appearances on stage. The positive news quickly turned into capital withdrawal. On February 20, the first trading day of the Horse Year on Hong Kong stocks, companies like Yuejiang and UBTECH saw sharp rises followed by rapid declines. Just a few days later, on February 24, the A-share robotics sector suffered a heavy loss, with Wuzhou Xinchun experiencing the largest intraday drop of over 9%, closing down 6.

9%. Core component companies such as Lvgai Harmonic and Wanxiang Qianchao led the decline in the sector. Unitree Robotics’ attempt to list on the STAR Market also saw extreme volatility. From being accepted for review on March 20 to receiving approval on July 2, it took only 104 days, setting a record for the fastest review time on the STAR Market. On July 2, the CSRC approved Unitree Robotics’ IPO application. The next day, A-share robotics stocks surged across the board, with over 50 stocks hitting the daily limit or rising by more than 10%.

However, in the three weeks before July, when Unitree’s IPO registration took effect and the World Artificial Intelligence Conference was held intensively, the CSI Robotics Index dropped by 12.77% in a single week, and the STAR 50 Index fell by 10.5% over three days. When expectations were fulfilled ahead of schedule and the market lost new capital, the exodus of funds under high congestion led to a severe drop in stock prices. Throughout July, the market value of A-share stocks evaporated by over 12 trillion yuan. The Shanghai Composite Index fell by 6.4%, the Shenzhen Component Index dropped by 16.21%, the ChiNext Index fell by 23%, and the STAR 50 Index fell by 25.90%, recording the largest monthly decline in history. AI-related stocks experienced the worst month ever, with the two innovation indexes falling by 23% and 25.90% respectively, while the semiconductor index fell by over 33%.

This marks the third such incident this year where high-valuation tech listings failed to sustain momentum, suggesting that Unitree’s valuation benchmark actually does not depend on Unitree itself. Several analysts focusing on the robotics sector point out that it is still Tesla that can drive the entire humanoid robot industry, citing an analogy with the electric vehicle industry: it was only after Tesla’s Model 3 went into mass production that pure electric vehicles began to enter people’s lives, leading to changes in public perception and the rise of other brands.

Even Tesla, considered a benchmark, faces significant uncertainties. The release of Tesla’s third generation of Optimus has been postponed to the first quarter of 2026, with key upgrades focusing on hand flexibility and body structure. Such continuous changes in design mean that the supply chain, which has been carefully analyzed and heavily speculated on by the market, may need to be rebuilt from scratch.

'Since the release of the first generation of Optimus, aside from general suppliers like Sanhua and Topway, the design materials, corresponding suppliers, and value of each joint have changed several times. The design we see today might be completely different from what future mainstream humanoid robots will actually look like,' said one analyst. Against this backdrop, the aforementioned institutional investor believes that the key to the entire humanoid robot sector lies in whether Tesla can meet market expectations.

'If Tesla fails to meet these expectations, and its stock price is also declining and sluggish, with industry progress constantly falling short of expectations, it will be difficult for Unitree to achieve an independent upward trend.' Nevertheless, he said, there are still many people around him who are keen to invest in Unitree’s IPO, highlighting the persistent allure of the sector despite underlying structural risks.