Unitree files for Shanghai STAR Market IPO seeking RMB4.2 billion as 2025 revenue jumps 335%

Unitree Robotics, the Hangzhou company which says it shipped more legged humanoid robots in 2025 than any other company, has applied to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market. The exchange accepted the application on March 20, 2026, and said Unitree plans to raise RMB4.202 billion. In its own summary of the filing, the SSE said Unitree would become the first humanoid robot stock on the A-share market if the listing goes through.

The prospectus gives outsiders their first detailed look at the company's accounts, and the growth is steep. Unitree reported reviewed 2025 revenue of RMB1,708.21 million, up 335.36% from 2024, and net profit attributable to shareholders excluding non-recurring items of RMB600.10 million, up 674.29%. The full-year 2025 figures were reviewed by the auditor rather than audited; the audited reporting period ends on September 30, 2025. In 2024 Unitree had revenue of RMB392.37 million and attributable net profit of RMB94.50 million, and in 2023 revenue of RMB159.13 million with an attributable net loss of RMB11.15 million.

The audited nine months to September 2025 show both the strength and the noise in the numbers. Revenue reached RMB1,167.49 million, but attributable net profit was RMB105.33 million against RMB430.61 million once non-recurring items are stripped out, a gap of more than RMB320 million booked as non-recurring in that period, according to the sponsor's letter filed with the exchange. Main-business gross margin rose to 59.45%, from 56.41% in 2024 and 44.22% in 2023. Research and development spending fell to 7.73% of revenue in the nine months, as sales grew far faster than the engineering budget.

The more telling change is in the product mix. Humanoid robots produced RMB595.19 million, or 51.53% of main-business revenue, in the first nine months of 2025, overtaking quadrupeds at RMB487.99 million (42.25%), with components and other products at RMB71.78 million (6.22%). A year earlier the order was reversed: quadrupeds brought in RMB230.54 million, or 59.53%, and humanoids RMB106.90 million, or 27.60%. Unitree says it shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025, counting only legged humanoids and excluding wheeled dual-arm machines, and describes that volume as the largest in the world. Cumulative quadruped sales have passed 30,000 units.

The offering itself will be at least 40,446,434 new shares, at least 10% of a post-issue share count of at least 404,464,340, before any over-allotment. CITIC Securities is sponsor and lead underwriter. Unitree chose the STAR Market listing standard that requires an expected market value of at least RMB10 billion, and pointed to its June 2025 Series C round, priced at RMB12.0 billion before and RMB12.7 billion after the money. The proceeds are earmarked for four projects: intelligent robot model development, robot body development, new robot products, and a manufacturing base.

Founder Wang Xingxing keeps firm control. He controls 34.7630% of the shares and, through a special voting rights structure, 68.7816% of the votes; after the offering his voting share will fall to no more than 65.3090%, according to the filing. The company was set up on August 26, 2016, and converted into a joint-stock company on May 28, 2025.

The geography of sales is shifting at home. Overseas customers accounted for 55.70% of revenue in 2024 but 39.20% in the first nine months of 2025, the sponsor's letter shows, which means the domestic market supplied most of last year's surge. The company lists trade friction, export controls and exchange-rate swings among its risk factors.

Unitree's numbers set it apart from both Chinese and American rivals. UBTech Robotics has been listed in Hong Kong since December 2023 and has funded itself through repeated share placings. LimX Dynamics closed a US$200 million Series B on February 2, 2026. In the United States, capital has been far larger relative to sales: Figure AI raised US$1 billion at a US$39 billion post-money valuation in September 2025, Skild AI raised US$1.4 billion at US$14 billion in January 2026, and Apptronik added US$520 million to its Series A in February 2026. Unitree, by contrast, is profitable on a recurring basis and was last valued privately at RMB12.7 billion.

The technology behind the margins is mostly in-house hardware. The prospectus lists twelve core technology areas, among them integrated joint assemblies (the motor-driven modules that move each limb), a self-developed lidar, compact body integration, fall protection and thermal management, along with embodied large models for humanoids. Making its own joints and sensors means more of the value of each robot stays inside the company, which is consistent with a main-business gross margin that rose from 44.22% in 2023 to 59.45% in the first nine months of 2025.

The filing is candid about risk. Unitree warns that breakthroughs in embodied AI models are uncertain, that growth and margins may not hold, that inventory and receivables are rising, that commercial uses may take longer to scale, and that competition and market sentiment could turn. Investors should also note that the full-year 2025 profit figures are reviewed rather than audited.