Breaking Down Unitree's IPO: Making 600 Million in a Year, Where Does the Money Come From

In February 2026, the UTree Robotics Group appeared at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Photo/IC

As the company enters its 10th year, UTree’s listing process has taken another step forward.

Approximately eight months after the listing process was initiated, on March 20, the Shanghai Stock Exchange official website announced that UTree Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as “UTree”)'s application for listing on the STAR Market has been accepted, with a proposed fundraising of 4.202 billion yuan.

In the early stages of industry development, UTree has clear advantages in both hardware and control systems, as well as cost management, and has already achieved stable revenue generation. With the disclosure of the prospectus, the company’s performance has come into view. UTree turned profitable in 2024, and in 2025, it achieved billion-yuan net profit largely thanks to the hype from the Spring Festival Gala: operating revenue reached 1.708 billion yuan, a 335.36% increase year-over-year; net profit was 288 million yuan, up 204.29%; and net profit attributable to parent after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 600 million yuan, a 674.29% increase.

UTree states that the Spring Festival Gala is of great significance to them, to some extent reshaping their growth trajectory. Beijing News Shell Finance reporters noted that previously, UTree, deeply associated with “robot dogs,” saw humanoid robot revenue surpass quadruped robots in the first three quarters of 2025, reaching 590 million yuan. Additionally, the Gala directly opened up the domestic market for UTree. From January to September 2025, domestic revenue share surged to 60.8%.

For this push towards listing, UTree has gathered a luxurious lineup of shareholders, including well-known investment institutions and star industry capital, such as Meituan, Ant Group, and Sequoia China.

2024 Turnaround, Humanoid Robots Surpass “Robot Dogs”

Over the past two years, UTree has achieved a performance turnaround, turning losses into profits in 2024, with a doubling of net profit in the following year.

According to the prospectus, from 2022 to 2025, UTree’s revenue was 123 million yuan, 159 million yuan, 392 million yuan, and 1.708 billion yuan respectively; net profit was -22.1 million yuan, -11.15 million yuan, 94.5 million yuan, and 288 million yuan.

This success is attributed to steady growth in quadruped robot performance, which is UTree’s traditional strength, with humanoid robot business later catching up. From January to September 2025, sales revenue of quadruped robots was 488 million yuan, up 182.22% year-over-year; humanoid robot sales reached 595 million yuan, a 642.38% increase.

Before the Spring Festival Gala performance of UTree’s humanoid robots, their quadruped robots had long been regulars in research institutions, outdoor patrols, and other scenarios worldwide. The core technology of their quadruped robots originated from the XDog quadruped robot, developed by founder Wang Xingxing during his master’s studies, which was the world’s first to adopt low-cost external rotor brushless motors.

Therefore, before humanoid robots gained widespread fame, UTree’s name was deeply associated with “robot dogs.” The prospectus shows that during the reporting period, total sales of quadruped robots exceeded 30,000 units; in 2022, quadruped robots accounted for 76.57% of UTree’s total revenue.

By 2023, UTree launched its first self-developed humanoid robot H1, which accounted for 1.88% of total revenue that year; the following year, it introduced the medium-sized humanoid G1, with revenue from humanoid robots increasing to 27.6% of total.

In the 2025 Spring Festival Gala, UTree’s humanoid robots “became famous overnight.” The company stated in the prospectus that benefiting from the Gala performance at the beginning of 2025, their brand awareness and attention nationwide continued to rise.

From January to September 2025, 3,551 humanoid robots were sold, a 1054.8% increase year-over-year; the total humanoid robot shipments for the year exceeded 5,500 units (pure humanoids, excluding wheeled bipedal robots), ranking first globally. In the first three quarters of 2025, revenue from humanoid robots overtook quadruped robots, reaching 590 million yuan, accounting for 51.53% of UTree’s main business.

UTree’s main business revenue. Photo/UTree Prospectus

Price Plummets, Gross Margin Rises, Application Scenarios Still Focused on Education and Research

The significance of the Spring Festival Gala for UTree is not only about rapidly opening up humanoid robot sales channels but also directly expanding their domestic market.

The prospectus shows that from 2022 to 2024, over 50% of UTree’s revenue came from overseas. However, in the first nine months of 2025, this reversed, with domestic revenue share soaring to 60.8%.

As production volume and sales increased, the average selling price of UTree robots declined year after year. In 2023, when UTree first produced humanoid robots, the average unit price was 593,400 yuan, with only five units sold that year; by the first three quarters of 2025, the average price had fallen to 167,600 yuan. The price of quadruped robots dropped from 38,300 yuan per unit in March 2023 to 27,200 yuan in the first three quarters of 2025.

Despite the sharp decline in unit prices, gross margins continued to rise. In 2022, UTree’s gross profit margin was 44.18%, and by the first nine months of 2025, it had increased by over 15 percentage points to 59.45%.

UTree attributes this mainly to improvements in manufacturing processes, reduced production costs, and increased bargaining power due to scaled production. Product structure optimization also played a role; for example, the company’s first humanoid H1 is a full-sized robot, 180 cm tall and weighing 47 kg, while the G1 launched the following year is a medium-sized robot about 130 cm tall, with lower specifications and prices.

The variety of products and high-volume production capacity have enabled UTree robots to quickly land in multiple scenarios. In the first three quarters of 2025, UTree’s operating cash inflow was 428 million yuan.

However, the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s official disclosure of UTree’s response to inquiry letters shows that research and education remain the primary application scenarios for humanoid robots. In the first three quarters of 2025, 73.6% of humanoid robot revenue came from research and education, 17.39% from commercial consumption, and only 9.01% from industry applications, mainly used for enterprise tours, intelligent manufacturing, and smart inspections.

For quadruped robots, revenue from research and education has decreased. In 2022, 68.61% of quadruped robot revenue came from research and education; in the first three quarters of 2025, this dropped to 31.58%, with commercial consumption accounting for 42.3% and industry applications 26.12%.

While the industry generally questions when humanoid robots will be mass-produced for factory deployment, UTree is clearly taking a different path. Whether their “non-factory” business model will succeed remains to be seen.

Wang Xingxing Controls About 35% of Shares, Backed by Tencent, Meituan, Ant Group and Other Top Investors

In the early stages of humanoid robot mass production and commercialization, “burning money on R&D” and losses are common. Compared to listed peers in Hong Kong like Yujian and UBTech, UTree’s profitability is particularly notable.

According to the prospectus, in 2024, UBTech’s net profit after non-recurring gains and losses was a loss of 1.093 billion yuan, and Yujian’s was a loss of 95.36 million yuan; during the same period, UTree’s net profit was 77.5036 million yuan.

In terms of gross profit margin, UTree significantly outperforms UBTech and Yujian. The prospectus shows that in 2024, UTree’s comprehensive gross margin was 56.98%, compared to UBTech’s 28.65% and Yujian’s 46.56%.

UTree states that this is partly due to differences in product structure and application scenarios—UBTech mainly produces educational, logistics, and consumer robots; Yujian focuses on collaborative robots.

Additionally, UTree believes its cost control capabilities are industry-leading, maintaining a full-stack self-research approach for both complete robots and core components, pioneering motor drive technology in high-performance general robots, and leveraging scaled production to enhance bargaining power.

As an industry “top student,” UTree attracts significant capital attention. The prospectus shows that in December 2021, UTree completed its first capital increase; four more in 2022; two in 2024; and a shareholding financing in June 2025.

Before this IPO, founder Wang Xingxing directly held 23.8216% of shares and controlled a total of 34.7630%. Under voting rights arrangements, his direct voting rights amounted to 63.5457%, and combined with the Shanghai Yuyi equity incentive platform he controls, the total voting rights controlled by him reach 68.7816%, making him the actual controller.

Behind him, UTree also has a lineup of top-tier investors, including well-known institutions and star industry capital. For example, Meituan holds 9.6488% through Hanhai Information, Galaxy Z, and Chengdu Longzhu; Ant Group’s wholly owned subsidiary Shanghai Yunrang holds 0.2245%; Sequoia China holds 7.1149% via Ningbo Sequoia and Xiamen Yahang; Matrix Partners holds 5.4528% via Matrix No.1 and No.3; Tencent Technology holds 0.5986%.

“Brain” Has Shortcomings, Over 2 Billion Yuan Invested in R&D of Intelligent Robot Models

2025 was a year of rapid evolution in UTree humanoid robot “mobility.”

Early in the year, on the Spring Festival Gala stage, the H1 humanoid robot performed a Yangge dance, impressing audiences with its hand movements. In December, at the Macao Macao concert, UTree’s G1 robot, dressed in silver, performed a challenging “Webster” flip.

By the 2026 Spring Festival Gala, 24 G1 robots and 1 H2 robot performed high-speed parkour, executing continuous acrobatic flips, jumps over 3 meters high, single-leg flips, and wall-assisted backflips.

The secret to the rapid advancement of UTree humanoid robot mobility is explained in the prospectus. UTree states that their general-purpose robot products now incorporate self-developed embodied intelligence models, often compared to a “small brain,” which determines the robot’s overall agility and movement capabilities.

However, in the other core technology of embodied intelligence—the embodied large model, or “big brain”—UTree’s self-developed general embodied large model has not yet been scaled into robot products. This technology is crucial for perception and interaction capabilities. UTree plans to continue increasing R&D investment in embodied large models with the funds raised this time.

Additionally, the company emphasizes that it maintains full-stack self-research for high-performance general robots and core components. These strategies are reflected in future investments, with over 20 billion yuan of the proposed 42.02 billion yuan IPO proceeds allocated to intelligent robot model R&D; 1.1 billion yuan to robot hardware R&D; 450 million yuan to new intelligent robot products; and 620 million yuan to the construction of intelligent robot manufacturing bases.

Beijing News Shell Finance reporters Zhang Xiaohui

Editors Wang Jinyu

Proofreaders Zhao Lin and Fu Chunyi