China’s best-known robot maker is about to test the public markets. Unitree could be worth more than 50 billion yuan, roughly $7bn, after its Shanghai listing, according to its IPO sponsor.The estimate comes from CITIC Securities.
As the deal’s sponsor, CITIC set out the valuation as Unitree kicked off pricing for its float on Shanghai’s STAR Market, the exchange’s board for technology companies.Some readings run higher still. Depending on where the shares price, other estimates suggest the valuation could climb well above that figure, a sign of how much appetite there is for the stock.
The timing plays to the hype. Unitree says it expects revenue to grow in the first half of the year as demand for humanoid robots accelerates, giving the listing a genuine growth story to sell.
Unitree made its name on price. It builds both four-legged robots and humanoids, and undercut Western rivals dramatically, putting a walking humanoid within reach of universities, developers and even hobbyists.
That affordability reshaped the field. By pricing its machines far below competitors, Unitree turned humanoid robots from lab curiosities into products people could actually buy, seeding a developer base around its hardware.
