Wang Xingxing , the 36-year-old founder of Unitree Robotics, spent most of his life building robots. And last week, Unitree’s blockbuster IPO proved that his obsession has finally paid off. Not only for Wang, but also for his 170 employees, venture investors, and government-backed funds that stood by him long before robots became one of the hottest industries in the world.

Unitree started trading on the Shanghai’s STAR stock exchange last week instantly turning a decade of private paper gains into public-market realized fortune and valued the company at roughly $50 billion. Early venture backers including Meituan, HongShan, Matrix Partners China and Shunwei Capital made billions on the first day of trading.

Here are the biggest winners from Unitree’s IPO, based on the company’s disclosed shareholder information from the Prospectus for Initial Public Offering and Listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market) for Unitree .

🏆 Wang Xingxing: $15 Billion

Obviously, the biggest winner is Wang himself.

Between his direct stake and shares held through Unitree’s employee incentive program, Wang controlled roughly one-third of the company before dilution from the IPO. At Unitree’s first-day closing price, those shares were worth about $15 billion.

What makes Wang even more inspiring is where he started.

Unlike many Chinese tech founders who studied at Stanford, MIT or worked in Silicon Valley, Wang Xingxing has essentially zero U.S. pedigree. Born in Zhejiang in 1990, he was not considered a standout student. One teacher even told his mother that, “Your child is a bit slow.”

But Wang loved building robots.

In 2015, while still a graduate student, he spent about RMB 20,000 ($3,000) building XDog, a quadruped robot for a robotics competition. It won second prize and earned him RMB 80,000 ($12,000).

In Unitree’s early days, money was so tight that Wang slept on a friend’s couch and used his own savings to help pay employees.

Today, he is one of China’s richest technology founders.

🍔 Meituan: $4.4 Billion Windfall

The largest outside shareholder is surprisingly not a VC.

It is Meituan , one of China’s biggest food-delivery and local-services platforms.

Through several investment vehicles, Meituan owned roughly 9.65% of Unitree before the IPO. At the first-day close, that stake was worth about $4.4 billion .

What I love about this is that Meituan founder Wang Xing has quietly been making hard-tech bets for years, even though most people still associate him with food delivery.

Turns out you can build one of the world’s biggest delivery businesses and still have very good taste in robots.

In 2019, HongShan, then Sequoia China, made its first investment in Unitree with a RMB 15 million ($2.2 million) check. Over time, it invested a total of RMB 102 million ($15 million).

At Unitree’s first-day close, HongShan’s stake was worth approximately $3.1 billion .

That works out to roughly 206x its total invested capital .

Venture capital is a very difficult business. Most investments don’t look anything like this.

But every once in a while, you back the right founder early enough. You hit the jackpot.

💰 Shunwei, Matrix Partners and CITIC Goldstone Got Billions Too

Other early investors also did well.

Shunwei Capital, co-founded by Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, ended the first day with a stake worth roughly $2.5 billion.

Matrix Partners China was right behind, with shares worth about $2.3 billion.

And CITIC Goldstone also walked away with roughly $2.3 billion worth of Unitree stock.

Not bad for investors who backed the company long before humanoid robots became hot in China.

🤖 DeepSeek: Small Check, Big Implications

DeepSeek invested $21 million (RMB 141 million) in Unitree’s strategic IPO placement. At the first-day close, that position was worth roughly $117 million .

Compared with everyone else on this list, that is almost pocket change.

But the investment itself may be the least interesting part.

Unitree may already have one of the strongest robot bodies in the world, but the bigger question is the brain. Could China's strongest AI model company eventually help give the strongest humanoid hardware company a better brain?

DeepSeek and Unitree have agreed to work together on embodied-intelligence models, including priority access to robots and AI models.

👷 170 Employees Become Millionaires Too

This is one of my favorite parts of the Unitree story.

More than 170 employees participated in the company’s employee incentive program. At Unitree’s first-day close, their shares were worth roughly $224 million in total.

There is also a much larger employee incentive vehicle controlled by Wang. His interest in that partnership is intended for employee equity awards rather than simply adding to his own fortune.

So Unitree’s IPO did not just make the founder and early investors very rich.

It also turned many hard working employee into millionaires.

🇨🇳 China’s Robot Cap Table Looks Very Different

Unitree’s cap table also tells you a lot about how China supports strategic industries.

Chinese local governments, state-backed funds and state-owned enterprises often sit right alongside VCs and technology companies on the cap tables, especially in sectors such as semiconductors, robotics, AI and advanced manufacturing.

Unitree is a perfect example. Its government-linked investors include:

  • Beijing Robotics Industry Development Investment Fund
  • China Internet Investment Fund
  • SCGC SME Development Fund (Xinjiang)
  • Zhongguancun Science City Technology Growth Investment Fund
  • Jiangsu Jiequan Red Earth Intelligent Venture Capital Fund
  • Shanghai Sci-Tech Innovation Center Private Investment Fund

And there are many more state-backed and government-affiliated investors who are all shareholders.

In Silicon Valley, the cap table is usually founders, VCs and strategic investors. In China, government capital is often sitting at the table too to fund the companies Beijing believes will matter to the country.

The Humanoid Race Just Became Real

As I wrote earlier this year , China is where the robotic action is happening right now. There are already more than 150 humanoid robotics companies in China , and the number keeps growing up!

Unitree’s IPO is important because it shows that humanoids are moving beyond science projects, flashy demos and venture capital promises. A robotics company can now ship thousands of units, generate real revenue and reach IPO status.

And I suspect Unitree will not be the only exception for long.

Wang Xingxing may have just opened the floodgates for China’s robotics IPO wave .

That is a big milestone not only for China and the entire robotic industry.