China’s Unitree soars in market debut as investors bet on humanoid robots

China’s Unitree Robotics has soared in its market debut, a sign of investors’ confidence in Chinese innovation in the burgeoning field of human-like robots.

Shares of Unitree surged more than 620 percent on Wednesday as it began trading in Shanghai, lifting the Hangzhou-based company’s market capitalisation to as high as 445 billion yuan ($66bn).

Unitree’s shares on the tech-oriented STAR Market ended the day up 460 percent.

Unitree, whose main competitors include China’s AgiBot and US-based Tesla and Boston Dynamics, had priced its initial public offering at 50.8 yuan per share for a company valuation of about 61 billion yuan ($9bn).

The landmark IPO marked the first listing of a humanoid robotics company in mainland China.

Unitree, founded in 2016 by engineer Wang Xingxing, is one of China’s leading makers of humanoid robots, with its demonstrations of human-like figures performing dancing and martial arts routines capturing widespread attention.

Last year, Unitree reported shipping more than 5,500 humanoid robots to customers worldwide, making the company a leading player in commercialising the frontier technology.

Unitree unveiled its latest humanoid robot on Monday, a model dubbed Superman that is marketed as being capable of jumping two metres high and running 12.66 metres per second.