China's Unitree Robotics made a spectacular stock market debut on August 19, surging 629% intraday on the Shanghai STAR Market before closing up 487% at a roughly $53 billion valuation — the biggest first-day pop in the exchange's history.

The humanoid robot maker, officially known as Yushu Technology, priced its IPO at 150.80 yuan (~$22.30) per share, raising approximately 6.1 billion yuan (~$904 million). The offering was oversubscribed 8,000 times by retail investors, reflecting enormous appetite for pure-play humanoid robotics exposure.

DeepSeek joined the deal as a strategic placement investor, underscoring the convergence of China's AI and robotics ecosystems.

Unitree is the first profitable, scaled humanoid robotics company to go public on a major exchange. The company posted 2025 revenue of about 1.708 billion yuan (~$235 million), up 335% year-over-year at roughly 60% gross margins, and shipped over 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025 — more than any other company globally.

However, first-half 2026 revenue growth decelerated to roughly 40% year-over-year, a detail investors will be watching closely. At the ~$53 billion post-debut valuation, the implied P/E ratio sits near 1,300x.

The listing makes Unitree the second most valuable humanoid robotics company behind Figure AI ($39 billion private valuation), though its public market capitalization now exceeds Figure's private mark. US investors cannot buy directly — the STAR Market is restricted to mainland Chinese investors and Stock Connect-eligible accounts — but indirect exposure exists through ETFs such as KraneShares' STAR Market fund (KSTR) and its humanoid robotics fund (KOID).

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