Robot «Superman» broke two human records — and fueled stock market fever in China

Chinese Unitree, three days before its debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, showed a humanoid that jumps higher than a person and runs faster than a sprinter, and its IPO has already collected eight thousand times more applications than there are shares.

A two-meter jump in three months of development

On Monday, August 17, the Unitree company rolled out a new robot and without undue modesty called it “Superman,” writes xrust. However, there was nothing special to be modest about: the car jumps two meters from a standstill and accelerates to 12.66 meters per second — that is, faster than any person on the planet can run. Both figures officially exceed current human world records.

The robot's legs are 85 centimeters long — about the same as a short adult's. “Superman” took a little more than three months of development, and Unitree themselves admit: the car is still raw, and they promise to significantly improve the characteristics by the end of the year.

The timing of the show was not accidental. It coincided with the opening of the World Robotics Conference in Beijing — that is, the moment when the whole world is already looking at the industry. And most importantly, before Unitree on Wednesday, August 19, becomes the first general robotics company in mainland China to go public on the stock exchange.

From student drone to IPO in eight years

Unitree founder Wang Xinxing built his first walking robot while still a student, calling it XDog. After briefly working at DJI, in 2016, at the age of 26, he opened his own company in Hangzhou. Over ten years, Unitree has grown from a manufacturer of inexpensive robotic dogs — for the price of a good laptop — into a world leader in the supply of humanoids: by the end of 2025, the company shipped about 5,500 machines, more than any competitor, and in total, since the beginning of work, about 18 thousand bipedal robots of various models have been transferred to customers.

In February, Wang Xingxing had a rare meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the company of DeepSeek executives, which in China is directly read as a sign of government support for the industry. The exchange accepted the application for IPO on March 20, and the listing committee approved it on June 1 — record-breaking speed by the standards of the STAR Market, the technology segment of the Shanghai Exchange, which many call the Chinese analogue of Nasdaq.

Alibaba, Tencent and the automaker Geely are already behind the company — they invested in June, clearly not doubting the outcome of the placement.

There are eight thousand times more applications than shares

There really was nothing to doubt: last week, Unitree placed about 40.45 million shares at 150.8 yuan (approximately 1,900 rubles) per share and raised 6.1 billion yuan, which is about 76.9 billion rubles. Demand from private investors exceeded supply by more than eight thousand times — an absolute record for the technology segment of the Shanghai exchange.

It got to the point that the lucky ones who did get the shares were already offered to resell the securities to resellers at 410 yuan before the start of trading — almost 170% more than the offering price. A similar fever gripped the market in early August at chip manufacturer CXMT: then shares rose more than fivefold after their debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and this significantly fueled the appetite for new technical placements.

Who will pay for 219 annual profits

class=»notranslate»>__GTAG7__At the placement price, the entire Unitree is valued at approximately 61 billion yuan — about 765 billion rubles, or $9 billion. The figure is eye-catching, but behind it is a multiple of 219 for the company's 2025 earnings and about 36 for its revenue — figures that are noticeably higher than most comparable robotics companies on Chinese exchanges.

At the same time, Unitree is a rare case in the humanoid sector: it is not just burning investor money on demonstrations, but making money. The company's revenue grew from 159 million yuan in 2023 to approximately 1.7 billion yuan in 2025, with gross margin remaining around 60%. For comparison: a direct competitor in terms of hype, the Optimus robot from Tesla, still exists within the automaker and does not have a separate market valuation, and the American startup Figure AI in its last private round was valued at $39 billion — despite the fact that there is simply no public market for its shares.

That is why the placement of Unitree is called the first truly market benchmark for the entire humanoid industry: previously, the valuations of such companies were taken, essentially, from the ceiling of private rounds, and now there will be a price that will be set by the open market every day.

Dancing, a fight without rules and an unanswered question

Unitree robots gained world fame not from factory tests, but from viral videos: the company’s humanoids run, dance and stage exhibition martial arts matches. It is this image — spectacular, but still far from the real tasks in production or warehouse — that confuses skeptics.

Their logic is simple and sounds the same in any market: the number of robots sold is not the same as the number of hours they actually worked. A jump of two meters looks beautiful on video, but does not yet answer the question of whether companies are ready to pay en masse for humanoids in the workshops, and not just surprise investors on the stock exchange.

Geopolitics also adds to the anxiety: just a few days before the start of placing the order book, new restrictions were introduced by the United States against Unitree, and foreign revenue is more than 40% of the company’s sales, and any tightening of trade barriers hits precisely this part of the business.

But so far the market is clearly voting in favor: the STAR50 index has rebounded by about 15% from the three-month low at the beginning of August, Chinese tech companies are generally winning back their recent drawdown, and after Unitree, other robot manufacturers will probably take a closer look at the listing — fortunately now they have something to work with check.

Sources

• reuters.com
• forbes.com
• disruptionbanking.com

Xrust Robot “Superman” broke two human records — and fueled stock market fever in China