Unitree, the Chinese robotics company famous for dancing quadrupeds and sprinting humanoids, listed on Shanghai’s STAR Market on August 19 and opened its first trading day up 629%. It closed at a 460% gain with a market cap above ¥340 billion, roughly $48 billion, becoming the first pure humanoid-robot stock on China’s A-share markets. The debut landed on the same day the 2026 World Robot Conference opened in Beijing, a coincidence that framed the week for the entire sector.
More than 300 companies exhibited at this year’s WRC, up 36% year over year, and the show added a procurement day for the first time. The shift in tone shows up in the Chinese coverage of the listing: the old yardstick rewarded flashy demos, the new one is anchored on deployment and commercial delivery. The article covering Unitree’s debut spends most of its length naming the candidates for “the next Unitree,” and the list is telling. Deep Robotics, the quadrupeds leader, is already profitable with ¥337 million in 2025 revenue, a 150%+ three-year CAGR, and 1,200+ deployed sites, with its STAR Market application accepted in May. Realman, which makes robotic arms and a global remote-operation network, reached operating profitability in 2025 and has started its listing guidance. Alongside them sit the model-driven players: Galaxea raised a ¥2 billion B+ round in April and is valued above ¥20 billion, while X-Square completed four rounds in two months with Meituan, Alibaba, ByteDance, and Xiaomi among its backers and has reportedly filed confidentially in Hong Kong.
🎩 Cask’s Take
The 629% opening is the part everyone will remember, but the more interesting number is the 460% close. A 340-billion-yuan market cap for a company that makes robots people actually buy is not pure mania - it is scarcity pricing. Unitree is the only way to own the humanoid theme on a public Chinese exchange, and markets pay a premium for the first clean vehicle of any new platform story.
What strikes me more is the yardstick shift hiding inside the coverage. The “next Unitree” list leads with companies that are profitable, deployed, and billing customers - Deep Robotics and Realman over the VLA-model unicorns. That is a maturity signal. Two years ago the same story would have been written around the demo that went viral; today it is written around revenue and procurement days. The sector is moving from the stage to the order book.
Still, I would not mistake the close for rationality. Day-one pops of this size usually price in more than any company can deliver in a quarter, and every private humanoid startup’s next round will now be benchmarked against a 340-billion-yuan anchor. The interesting question is not whether Unitree deserved the pop, but whether the next Unitree candidates can hold their valuations once they arrive.