Unitree Robotics has priced its initial public offering on Shanghai’s Star Market at 150.8 yuan per share, valuing the Hangzhou-based firm at 60.99 billion yuan (US$9 billion), according to a filing released Thursday evening. The company will sell 40.45 million new shares to raise 6.1 billion yuan, above its initial 4.2 billion yuan target. Widely billed as “mainland China’s first humanoid stock,” the IPO is set to serve as a valuation benchmark for China’s embodied-AI sector. Backers including AI unicorn DeepSeek and tech giant Tencent Holdings joined the strategic placement, alongside state-backed giants China National Petroleum Corp, China Southern Power Grid, China Telecom, Citic Securities and the National Council for Social Security Fund. DeepSeek invested 141 million yuan bound by a three-year lock-up period and agreed to co-develop AI models and embodied-intelligence technology with Unitree, with both firms giving each other priority access in areas such as robot procurement and AI model services. The IPO would serve as a valuation anchor—and effectively the ceiling—for other companies in the embodied-intelligence space, said Zheng Hualiang, founder of Hangzhou-based venture capital firm Leap VC.