Consumer Tech Unitree IPO’s Massive 629% Pop Makes Agility Robotics Look Super Cheap By John Koetsier ,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Journalist, analyst, author, podcaster. Follow Author Aug 19, 2026, 02:19am EDT --:-- / --:-- This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . Summary Chinese robotics firm Unitree saw its stock surge an astonishing 629% on its Shanghai STAR Market debut, closing up 487%. The IPO valued the company at roughly $53 billion, with a P/E ratio nearing 1,300x, after raising $904 million. The retail offering was oversubscribed 5,500 times, underscoring intense investor demand for the profitable company, which shipped 5,500 humanoids in 2025. This massive valuation dwarfs that of US counterpart Agility Robotics, which is going public via SPAC at an implied $4 billion. While Agility has significant pre-orders, it's not yet profitable, unlike Unitree. Unitree's successful debut sets a new, high benchmark for the burgeoning humanoid robot market globally.
A Unitree G1 humanoid robot. The company's IPO landed today, and the stock jumped 629%. VCG via Getty Images High-five a Unitree G1, if you can find the robotic little guy anywhere. His makers hit the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market today, and the company’s stock value surged 629% – a 629% jump before a single retail investor had time to refresh a browser tab – and ended the day’s trading still up 487%, according to exchange data , at almost 1,300X last year’s earnings.
In other words, stock 688836 – Unitree’s symbol on the STAR Market – is one hot commodity. And so, by extension, is the humanoid robot market.
At close, Unitree is worth roughly 358 billion yuan, or about $53 billion. Not bad for a company that earned 278 million yuan in net profit last year: about $41 million. On revenue of 1.7 billion yuan ($252 million), it’s roughly 210 times sales. The IPO was initially priced at 219 times earnings, which is already aggressive, but the market decided that was a bargain and multiplied it by six.
The offering raised 6.1 billion yuan or $904 million for Unitree, which sold 40.45 million shares accounting for roughly 10% of the company. The retail tranche was oversubscribed more than 5,500 times, with 9.8 million retail accounts chasing 9.7 million available shares, which works out to an allocation rate of 0.018%.
Odds of getting shares were worse than one in five thousand, which explains pretty loudly why the stock popped so much on launch.
Institutional stockholders read like a who’s who of Chinese tech business. DeepSeek, Tencent, PetroChina, China Telecom and others all had strategic placements, usually with an investment arm. Early Unitree backers include Meituan, HSG and Xiaomi.
Unitree on the STAR Market John Koetsier MORE FOR YOU Founder Wang Xingxing holds around 30%, which makes his stake worth north of 100 billion yuan. Wang famously started Unitree in 2016 after a two-month stint at DJI and built his first bipedal robot as an undergraduate with 200 yuan in parts.
All of this makes Agility Robotics look incredibly cheap.
The U.S. has its own humanoid robot public listing in progress, but there’s a pretty big contrast in valuation, at least so far.
Agility Robotics is the Oregon-based company behind the Digit warehouse humanoid. Agility announced in June that it would go public via a merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI at…