Unitree Robotics, formally Yushu Technology Co., is a Chinese robotics manufacturer based in Hangzhou that produces quadruped and humanoid robots at price points well below those of Western competitors. Founded in 2016, it listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market in August 2026. Its robots are used predominantly in university and research settings rather than in industrial deployment, and its access to the United States market has been restricted by a July 2026 Federal Communications Commission equipment-authorization action.
Snapshot
Valuation
| Date | Figure | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-19 | ~$50B market value | First-day close on the STAR Market at 845 yuan, 460% above the 150.8 yuan IPO price; shares briefly rose close to 630% intraday before pulling back | (Source: reuters.com; finance.yahoo.com) |
Financial results
| Year | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Profit of approximately $41 million | (Source: therobotreport.com) |
| 2024 | Profit of approximately $14 million | (Source: therobotreport.com) |
| 2023 | Loss of approximately $1.6 million | (Source: therobotreport.com) |
Humanoid units sold
| Year | Units | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 5,215 | (Source: therobotreport.com) |
| 2023 | 5 | (Source: therobotreport.com) |
Products
Unitree sells quadruped robots, humanoid robots, robotic hands and arms, and lidar units. Its G1 humanoid, offered at $13,500, is the model most widely distributed to research laboratories, and video of it dancing, performing martial-arts routines and executing backflips has circulated widely (Source: therobotreport.com).
In the week of its listing the company previewed a humanoid it named "Superman", which it said it had developed in three months and which it said can perform a standing jump of over two metres and reach a top speed of about 12.6 metres per second, or roughly 28 miles per hour (Source: therobotreport.com; finance.yahoo.com). The performance figures are the company's own and have not been independently verified in the sources available here.
Initial public offering
Unitree's shares began trading on the STAR Market — the Shanghai Stock Exchange's board for technology companies — on August 19, 2026. The offering sold about 10% of the company's shares and raised approximately 6.1 billion yuan, around $904 million (Source: reuters.com; washingtonpost.com; therobotreport.com). Unitree described itself as the first major legged-robotics company to go public; UBTech, a Shenzhen-based humanoid developer, listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2023 (Source: therobotreport.com).
No pure-play domestic humanoid developer had gone public in the United States as of August 2026. Agility Robotics, developer of the Digit humanoid, has been reported to be planning a listing through a special purpose acquisition company at a $2.5 billion pre-money equity valuation; shares in the SPAC involved, Churchill XI, rose in the week of Unitree's debut. Boston Dynamics, owned by Hyundai, and Figure AI had disclosed no public-offering plans (Source: therobotreport.com).
Deployment mix and industry commentary
Around 70% of the humanoids Unitree sold in 2025 went to universities and research institutions, and its robots have not yet been demonstrated in sustained industrial work (Source: therobotreport.com). Gavin Kenneally, chief executive of Ghost Robotics, told The Robot Report that "volume makes a good IPO story. But fewer than 10% of Unitree's sales are for commercial deployments. The lion's share of their robots are in labs and lobbies," and said Unitree "will need to demonstrate that they can build safe, secure robots that customers can rely on in the toughest real-world environments." Nicolaus Radford, chief executive of Persona AI, said Unitree "has proven it can sell robots. It hasn't proven their operational durability, repeat business, or a use case that warrants deployment at scale," and that with the FCC restriction in place "investors are being asked to take it on faith that [what appears to be] thousands of one-off sales will somehow become a sustainable business" (Source: therobotreport.com). Both commentators lead competing robotics firms, and their remarks are positions of interested parties rather than independent assessments.
By comparison, UBTech reported selling 1,079 humanoid robots in 2025 against a loss of roughly $104 million, and derives about a quarter of its revenue from lawn mowers, pool cleaners and vacuums, where Unitree's profits come from robots alone (Source: therobotreport.com).
United States regulatory status
On July 28, 2026 the Federal Communications Commission added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices — mobile robots including humanoids and quadrupeds — to its Covered List, barring new models in that category from FCC equipment authorization and therefore from import, marketing or sale in the United States (FCC Covered List addition — foreign-produced advanced robotic devices and connected power inverters (July 2026)). The restriction applies to new devices rather than to authorizations already granted, so Unitree's difficulty is with future models rather than with units already in the American market (Source: therobotreport.com).
In June 2026 the Department of Defense added Unitree to its list of Chinese military companies (Source: reuters.com).
Open questions
- Whether Unitree's research-and-laboratory sales base converts into repeat industrial deployment is not established by any source available here; the company's own filings on the point have not been examined.
- The extent of Unitree's remaining commercial access to the United States market under the Covered List action — which units retain valid equipment authorizations, and on what terms — is not settled in the sources here.