Unitree's IPO Subscriptions Came In at 0.02% — and ByteDance's Robotics Chief Just Landed at Xiaomi
Subtitle: Day two of the Unitree STAR Market subscription shows the market's appetite for the first humanoid IPO: brokers estimate an online allotment rate around 0.02–0.03%. Meanwhile former ByteDance robotics head Kong Tao has reportedly joined Xiaomi to lead its robot foundation-model team — the talent consolidation phase of China's robotics buildout is accelerating.
The humanoid-robot trade just got its first public-market stress test — and the demand side looks intense. Unitree's STAR Market IPO opened for online subscription on Aug 10, and brokerage estimates put the online allotment rate at roughly 0.02–0.03%: a float small enough that even a strong subscription wave leaves most retail bidders empty-handed. Chinese media call it the country's first IPO by a humanoid robot maker. First-day gains remain projections, not guidance — but the subscription mechanics are the real signal.
While retail waits on the lottery, the talent market is already consolidating: former ByteDance robotics head Kong Tao has reportedly joined Xiaomi, where he leads a team building foundation models for robots. Several sources say Kong moved in 2025 and brought former ByteDance colleagues with him. Xiaomi's robotics division is said to be around 200 people, with the foundation-model team running separately inside it — the team behind the already-released Xiaomi-Robotics-1 model, which is being tested on humanoid robots in manufacturing environments.
Two stories, one throughline: the sector is moving from demo to priced asset (IPO subscription) and from research to organized product orgs (Xiaomi's 200-person robotics division with a dedicated foundation-model team). Both are signs the humanoid buildout is being capitalized — in the capital markets and in headcount.
Unitree: the first humanoid IPO, and what 0.02% means
- Allotment rate estimate: 0.02–0.03% (brokerage estimates) — a small public float with heavy demand pressure.
- The set-up: the STAR Market listing follows a ¥150.80/share IPO price (~¥61B valuation, 219x P/E vs. a ~38.56x industry average), with the China Social Security Fund, DeepSeek (¥141M), Tencent and CNPC in the strategic placement.
- Why it matters: this is the first time the public market gets to price a humanoid company in China. If the subscription closes oversubscribed by multiples, the sector's valuation narrative holds; if demand fizzles, the correction that hit embodied-AI concept stocks last week deepens — right as the World Humanoid Robot Games (Aug 22–26) approach.
The strategic placement already told you the model layer is buying into the hardware layer. The retail allotment rate tells you the public wants in too. Whether that enthusiasm survives the first-day trading is the next data point.
Xiaomi: the talent consolidation phase
- Kong Tao, formerly head of ByteDance's robotics team, has reportedly joined Xiaomi to lead robot foundation-model development, bringing several former ByteDance colleagues.
- Xiaomi's robotics division is estimated at ~200 people; the foundation-model team sits separately within it.
- Xiaomi has already released Xiaomi-Robotics-1, its robot foundation model, and is testing humanoid robots in manufacturing settings.
The read: foundation models are becoming the talent battleground of the robotics industry. ByteDance's robotics research was widely seen as strong; Xiaomi now gets that capability integrated with its consumer-hardware scale and manufacturing pipelines. This is the same pattern we've seen in LLMs — the talent arbitrage — now playing out in embodied AI.
The quieter signals that round out the day
- Tencent reportedly makes WorkBuddy a top strategic AI priority — the agentic workplace push continues across the Chinese majors.
- Moore Threads plans Hong Kong listing after H1 revenue jumped 147% — the China GPU supply chain is heading to public markets too, an important test of how investors value domestic compute in a sanctions-constrained environment.
- Apple says mainland China has not launched Qwen integration after a Mac guide briefly appeared and disappeared — the AI-integration rumor mill stays active.
The bottom line
Aug 11 is a day about capital finding its way into robotics: retail subscriptions lining up for Unitree's IPO, and talent consolidating under Xiaomi's foundation-model program. When a sector starts being priced in the public market and organized into 200-person product teams, it has crossed from research theater into industrial formation. The games give the industry a stage; the IPO and the hiring give it a price and a payroll.
Top comments (0)