Unitree prices its Shanghai IPO at 150.80 yuan — and DeepSeek is on the register

Unitree Robotics set the price for its STAR Market initial public offering at 150.80 yuan ($22.3) a share in a filing made public on August 6, 2026, seeking about 6.1 billion yuan in gross proceeds. The company is issuing roughly 40.44 million shares, 10% of its enlarged share capital, which puts the implied post-offering valuation near 61 billion yuan — about $9 billion. Subscriptions open on August 10 with payment due by August 12. On listing it becomes China’s first mainland-listed maker of humanoid robots.

The pricing is materially above where the offering launched. When Unitree formally kicked off the deal on July 31 it was described as raising about 4.2 billion yuan at a valuation near 42 billion yuan; CITIC Securities had put the post-IPO figure above 50 billion yuan. Book-building closed the gap upward, which is the single most informative number in the filing: institutional demand repriced a profitable humanoid manufacturer by roughly a third in six days.

Who took the strategic placement

Strategic investors committed about 8.08 million shares, 20% of the offering, across nine participants. The one that matters commercially is Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co — DeepSeek’s parent — allocated 933,400 shares for 141 million yuan. Tencent, PetroChina and China Southern Power Grid also participated, alongside state-backed vehicles including the National Council for Social Security Fund, CNPC Kunlun Capital and Tianyi Capital. Unitree framed the DeepSeek allocation as groundwork for joint research on foundation models and embodied intelligence rather than as a passive cheque.

A foundation-model lab taking equity in a robot manufacturer at IPO is a supply-chain move, not a portfolio one. — EW analysis

On the fundamentals, Unitree guides first-half 2026 revenue of 1.052 to 1.128 billion yuan with recurring net profit of 236 to 283 million yuan. Its listing review cleared in 73 days, among the fastest hard-tech approvals on the A-share market in recent years, and approval came on June 1.

Why it matters

Until now the humanoid sector has been valued entirely by private rounds, where the price is negotiated and the comparables are chosen. From August a profitable humanoid manufacturer will carry a public share price that anyone can mark against, and every subsequent private round in the category will be argued relative to it. That is a structural change in how the sector gets financed.

Two caveats travel with it. The first is regulatory: Unitree warned in late July that future models could be shut out of the United States under the FCC’s Covered List addition, and it is the Chinese maker with the most American exposure. The second is what the multiple implies. At roughly 61 billion yuan against a first-half profit run rate in the hundreds of millions, the price embeds years of growth that has not been demonstrated at scale in a category where nobody has yet proved durable unit economics outside China. The listing gives the sector a public number. It does not make the number right.