China Raises Scrutiny of Humanoid Robot IPOs, Reports Say

BEIJING — Chinese securities regulators are reportedly raising the threshold for humanoid robot companies seeking public listings, according to media reports, following a rush of IPO applications and volatile trading in Unitree Robotics shares.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission has provided informal “window guidance” to some investment banks and companies, Reuters reported Sept. 9, citing an earlier report by The Information. Prospective issuers are reportedly being asked to show recurring revenue and progress toward reducing losses or establish that they have produced meaningful technological innovation.

Reuters said it could not independently verify the report. Chinese financial regulators did not respond to its request for comment.

The Wall Street Journal separately reported that the securities regulator had held informal discussions with investment banks and institutional investors about setting a higher bar for humanoid companies. The Journal cited people familiar with the matter.

No formal rule or written policy has been published. Window guidance communicates regulators’ expectations privately and can affect which applications advance without creating a publicly documented standard. It is therefore too early to determine whether the reported approach represents a temporary slowdown, a broader change in listing policy or closer examination of individual applicants.

The scrutiny follows the Aug. 19 listing of Unitree, formally Yushu Technology Co. Ltd., on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market. The company’s shares closed 460% above their offering price on their first trading day, after the IPO raised about 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million), according to The Associated Press.

That initial surge faded quickly. Reuters reported that Unitree shares had fallen roughly 45% following the debut jump, while the Journal said they were trading around 50% below their post-listing peak. The figures use different reference points but describe the same sharp reversal.

Unitree priced its shares at 150.80 yuan each. Its official listing document warned that the offering valued the company at 35.89 times its 2025 revenue and 219.23 times earnings under one of the disclosed calculations. Both ratios exceeded the comparison levels cited in the filing.

The company reported 1.7 billion yuan in 2025 revenue and 590.8 million yuan in net profit excluding nonrecurring items for 2025. Its filing also warned that first-quarter 2026 revenue growth had slowed and that adjusted profit had fallen 52.55% from a year earlier as expenses increased.

Unitree’s filing acknowledged the limited maturity of general-purpose embodied AI. The company said it had not applied its internally developed general-purpose embodied models at scale in its robot products, although it had conducted development tests.

The reported regulatory criteria focus on the gap between technical development and repeatable commercial use. Robot shipment totals do not necessarily distinguish among research sales, demonstrations, limited trials and routine industrial use.

Unitree’s IPO passed the established regulatory process. A Shanghai Stock Exchange notice (Chinese-language source) said the exchange’s listing committee approved the application and the securities regulator registered it before the offering.

The regulator has not confirmed the reported change in its approach, disclosed the criteria it may apply or identified which humanoid robotics companies could face delayed approvals.