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Unitree IPO - $608M on Chinese robots

Apr 26, 2026 · #ai #robots #unitree #china #humanoids #ipo #tesla

Unitree IPO - $608M on Chinese robots

Chinese humanoid robot company is going public for $608 million. In 2025 they shipped 5,500 units. This year they’re aiming for 20,000. Americans - still with declarations.

Unitree humanoid robots IPO Shanghai

While everyone watches Tesla Optimus and Musk’s promises of “millions of robots in homes”, something much more practical is happening in China. Unitree Robotics - a company founded by an engineer who was still working on his robotics master’s degree seven years ago - is preparing to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Fundraising amount: $608 million. Goal: accelerate production, new humanoid versions, new factory, new R&D. Context: Unitree is already building robots. Not as prototypes - as a real export product.

What Unitree actually produces

Two main product lines:

Human-sized humanoids - two-legged robots that can walk, run, get up after falling, carry packages. In the industrial version, targeted at factories, warehouses, assembly lines. Price in 2025 - around $30,000 per unit. 70% drop vs previous year.

Quadruped dog-robots - the same ones you saw at the Hong Kong fairs. They can climb stairs, carry loads of several kilograms, inspect industrial installations. Increasingly used by security companies, inspectors, the military.

In 2025, Unitree shipped 5,500 units. In 2026, the target is 10,000-20,000. This isn’t experimental production. It’s industrial.

American competition

Figure AI - the most hyped American humanoid robot company - is valued at $39 billion. No mass product. With a pilot at BMW’s South Carolina factory - 30,000 cars assembled with their robots’ help annually.

Tesla Optimus - Musk declares every year that “next year, millions”. Today: a few hundred units in testing phase, no full production.

Boston Dynamics - Hyundai - announced a partnership with production scale of 30,000 Atlas units per year. Full production start - 2027.

Meanwhile Unitree is going public now. With a product on the market. With a production plan. With a Chinese factory.

Why this matters to you

The robot war is supposed to be a war over factory jobs. If China wins - your Polish automotive, logistics, manufacturing factories - they’ll buy Chinese robots. Because cheaper. Because already in production. Because America can’t keep up.

If Americans win - you’ll get more expensive robots, but with better software, better support. And at a price that reflects American margins.

For now - Chinese are first on the stock exchange.

My take

In my opinion, the robot war will be won by whoever builds more units. Software you can catch up on. Design you can catch up on. But the scale of humanoid robot production you have to build from the ground up - factory, suppliers, component chain. And that chain already exists in China - because over the last twenty years China built the electronics manufacturing ecosystem.

Tesla Optimus is a concept. Figure is a pilot with one factory. Unitree is a real production line with a target of 20,000 units this year and 10x scaling next year.

If you have Tesla in your portfolio and counting on Optimus as a second pillar - worth asking yourself when they’ll realistically enter scale production. For now it’s Unitree that has production, and Tesla has only promises.

Sources

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