SHANGHAI – The highly anticipated initial public offering of Unitree Robotics drew huge demand from retail investors as China’s leading humanoid robot maker opened books for an offering that’s set to give it a market valuation of US$9 billion (S$11.5 billion).
The retail portion of the IPO was 5,526 times subscribed, with individual investors submitting 9.8 million orders, according to an exchange filing released on Aug 10.
The Hangzhou-based company sold 40.4 million shares at 150.8 yuan apiece, raising about 6.1 billion yuan (S$1.2 billion) to become mainland China’s first publicly traded humanoid robot maker. Unitree, officially known as Yushu Technology, is expected to debut on Shanghai’s STAR Market in August.
China is increasingly turning to the capital market to fund its tech race against the US in AI. Humanoid robots have become Beijing’s strategic priority, and Unitree is a key player with its dancing robots at the annual Spring Festival Gala drawing global attention.
The high level of interest underscores the investor appetite for physical AI companies, one of Beijing’s strategic priorities. The strong subscription was also likely aided by backing from strategic investors including AI startup DeepSeek, reinforcing confidence in Unitree and the growing convergence of artificial intelligence and robotics.
About 20 per cent of the shares for sale have been allocated to strategic investors including DeepSeek, a Tencent Holdings-affiliated investment vehicle, and investment arms of major state-owned enterprises such as China National Petroleum, China Southern Power Grid and China Telecom.
DeepSeek received a 2.31 per cent stake allocation with a lockup period of three years. The collaboration allows Unitree to draw on DeepSeek’s AI strength to develop embodied-intelligence models for its humanoid robots, which gained broad public attention after appearing in a Chinese Spring Festival gala.
A successful listing could also build momentum for other Chinese robotics companies pursuing IPOs, including Leju Robotics and Deep Robotics. Another humanoid robot developer, Shanghai AgiBot Innovation Technology, has started the process for a Hong Kong listing, Securities Daily reported in July. BLOOMBERG
