Bot bonanza

Investors have thrown money at everything from AI chips to prediction markets. Now, you can add kung-fu-fighting robots to the list.

Shares of Chinese robot maker Unitree Robotics surged 460% in their Shanghai STAR Market debut, one of the splashiest listings yet for China’s booming humanoid robot industry.

Everybody wants in

The robots can’t wash your dishes or do your laundry, but they can dance, throw punches, do backflips, and sprint faster than Usain Bolt. On Monday, Unitree unveiled a humanoid called “Superman” that the company says can jump two meters from a standstill and run as fast as 12.66 meters per second (that’s 28+ mph for you Americans).

Admittedly, that sounds pretty cool—and investors seem to agree. Demand was already off the charts before Unitree began trading: Unitree’s online offering was more than 5,000 times oversubscribed, leaving retail investors with just a 0.018% chance of scoring shares. The company also raised about $905 million from strategic investors that included Chinese AI darling DeepSeek, which put in roughly $21 million.

But investors weren’t exactly getting a bargain. Unitree entered the market at a roughly $9 billion valuation, already more than 200 times last year’s earnings. By the closing bell, its market value had ballooned to about $50 billion.

That said, the company is profitable—a rarity among humanoid robot makers—and its revenue more than quadrupled last year to roughly $250 million. But growth isn’t coming cheap: first-quarter adjusted profit fell around 52% as the company ramped up R&D and marketing spending.

The robot race

The humanoid market is still in its infancy, but Morgan Stanley estimates that it could grow to $7.5 trillion by 2050. China has an early lead: Chinese companies already account for the vast majority of global humanoid deliveries, and Morgan Stanley expects the country to ship about 50,000 units this year, nearly double its previous forecast.

Unitree’s blockbuster debut also shows just how much investor appetite there is for humanoid bots at large. That includes offerings from Tesla, which is preparing to mass-produce its next-generation Optimus robot.

US policy could also give American robot makers a boost. Last month, Washington restricted imports of new humanoid robot models over an “immediate national security threat.” That’s a particular headache for Unitree, which gets more than 40% of its revenue from overseas, and has warned that tighter trade restrictions could hurt its business.

For now, though, Unitree doesn’t seem to have problems finding investors willing to bet that the company can help them enjoy some gains—before the robot army takes over the world.—SY