Author: Gu Lingyu, Tencent Technology

In the winter of 2017, due to high-speed rail regulations against carrying large-capacity lithium batteries, Wang Xingxing traveled over ten hours by train from Hangzhou to Beijing, carrying a robotic dog, to do a roadshow for Sequoia China. At that time, his company was close to being unable to pay salaries.

Nine years later, Yushu Technology is about to become China's first listed "humanoid robot stock" on the A-share market. The latest news is that on August 6, Yushu Technology announced an issue price of 150.80 yuan per share, held an online roadshow on the 7th, and will begin online subscription on the 10th.

Many expect its market value to exceed 100 billion yuan. Several secondary market practitioners expressed to Tencent Technology the same perspective: Although the stock market has been highly volatile recently, the new offering of Yushu will still be very rare, "because everyone believes this industry is supported by policy, and leading companies will surely rise."

According to the prospectus, the company’s public offering of new shares will amount to 40.4464 million shares, accounting for 10% of the total share capital after the issuance. On August 6, the final issuance price was set at 150.80 yuan per share, raising approximately 6.1 billion yuan, corresponding to a post-issue valuation of about 61 billion yuan. The initial online issuance is only 6.471 million shares, and based on 500 shares per subscription, the total number of lucky draw numbers available across the market is only 12,942, less than 13,000. This means that for every 10,000 valid subscription numbers, there are only about 2 winning slots.

According to incomplete statistics, over the past two years, the Chinese embodiment intelligence industry has seen the birth of more than 300 startups. By August of this year, at least five companies have been valued at over 20 billion yuan, and nearly 50 companies are preparing for listings on the Hong Kong or A-share markets. For these companies, the stock price of Yushu will serve as a valuation anchor for the A-share market and a reference for the Hong Kong stock market.

This is a critical moment — however, within this capital feast upheld by the concept of embodied intelligence, a gap is emerging between the wealth creation in the primary market and the reality in the secondary market.

The person who makes the most money from Yushu

Wang Xingxing does not fit the typical profile of a hard technology entrepreneur — this became the origin of the "counter-consensus" among early investors in Yushu.

He graduated from Shanghai University with a mediocre resume. During early fundraising, he faced various obstacles. In the golden decade of internet model innovation, VCs had templates for evaluating people: prestigious school backgrounds, executives from major companies, overseas returnees, or serial entrepreneurs. These criteria to some extent ensured the lower limit of entrepreneurial projects while filtering out entrepreneurs like Wang Xingxing.

Tian Jiangchuan, a partner at Chuxin Capital, publicly reflected on this experience. At the end of 2017, he met Wang Xingxing for the first time in a café in Hangzhou. At that time, Yushu's product had already shown extreme cost-cutting ideas and differentiated technological paths, but Tian Jiangchuan ultimately decided against investing. "Looking back, the main issue stemmed from my 'eliteism arrogance': Xingxing graduated from Shanghai University, while I thought the robotics industry needed top university backgrounds," Tian Jiangchuan later admitted. It wasn't until 2020 that Chuxin Capital re-invested in Yushu at more than four times the original price.

An investor who has been following the domestic robotics sector for over a decade told Tencent Technology that when Yushu was founded, the quadruped robotics sector was not highly regarded in China, and very few institutions had early contact with it.

Time rewarded the earliest "counter-consensus" participants. In 2016, Yin Fangming, who previously worked at MediaTek, Sogou, and Qihoo 360, made an angel investment of 2 million yuan, acquiring 15% of Yushu Technology. This investment corresponded to a post-investment valuation of only 13.33 million yuan. Today, this investment is indirectly held through the holding platform Tianjin Junwan Hongyi, which owns 3.0699% of Yushu, ranking as the tenth-largest shareholder. After deduction, Yin Fangming actually indirectly holds about 0.46% of Yushu's shares. If calculated based on an initial issue valuation of 42 billion yuan, the shares indirectly held by Yin Fangming have a book value of about 200 million yuan, with an overall return rate of about 100 times. By 2025, he had already cashed in 58 million yuan by transferring part of his old shares.

From the perspective of return multiples, the institution with the highest multiple is Variable Capital. This early fund invested only 2.09 million yuan in Yushu's angel round in 2018, and the current return multiple has reached 174.62 times, with a total return of approximately 364 million yuan, including already exited portions.

Sequoia China’s return multiple is also impressive. The roadshow that Wang Xingxing made by taking that train prompted the Sequoia Seed Fund to immediately issue an investment intention. This investment of 15 million yuan corresponded to a post-investment valuation of only 150 million yuan. After multiple rounds of investment, Sequoia China has invested about 102 million yuan in total, currently holding 7.11% of shares. Based on the issuance valuation of 42 billion yuan, this corresponds to a book market value of about 2.98 billion yuan, an absolute amount exceeding 2.5 billion yuan.

Meituan is the institution with the highest absolute amount earned. Through Hanhai Information, Chengdu Longzhu, and other entities, Meituan holds a total of 9.65% of Yushu Technology, making it the largest external institutional shareholder. According to the issuance valuation, the market value corresponding to Meituan's shares is about 4.05 billion yuan. Considering its accumulated investment of about 400 million yuan in the B2 round and other rounds in 2024, Meituan's book return exceeds 3.6 billion yuan.

Wang Xinyu, a partner at Meituan Longzhu, met Wang Xingxing during his first week of work in 2016 but did not invest until 2024. At the end of 2023, Wang Xinyu went to the US to research the robotics laboratories at top universities like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, discovering that these leading research institutions were all using Yushu's robotic dogs for further development. "If the best PhD students in the world are using Yushu's robots for cutting-edge research, won't its AI capabilities be resolved?" Wang Xinyu stated in a media interview.

Other early or mid-stage investors have also profited significantly. Jingwei Venture Capital entered in the 2022 B round at a valuation of about 1.12 billion yuan, currently holding 5.45%, corresponding to a market value of about 2.29 billion yuan, with a book return multiple of about 45 times; Shunwei Capital first entered in January 2021 at a valuation of 380 million yuan, currently holding 3.98%, corresponding to a market value of about 1.67 billion yuan, with a book return multiple of about 26 times; the CITIC system entered in the 2024 B2 round, currently holding 4.49%, corresponding to a market value of about 1.88 billion yuan; Deep Venture Capital has invested about 90 million yuan in total, currently holding about 2.55%, corresponding to a market value of about 1.07 billion yuan, with book returns around 10 times. Shanghai Yuyi holds 10.94% of shares as an employee stock ownership platform, corresponding to a market value of about 4.59 billion yuan, among which 14 core employees hold about 5.92 million shares, with an average book market value close to 48.9 million yuan.

In June 2025, Yushu Technology confirmed the completion of C round financing delivery, co-led by a fund under Mobvoi, Tencent, Jinqiu, Alibaba, Ant Group, and Geely Capital, bringing the post-financing valuation to 12.7 billion yuan. According to the valuation based on the angel round in 2016, its valuation skyrocketed nearly 1,000 times in nine years. Before the IPO issuance, the top ten shareholders collectively held a shareholding ratio of 71.50%.

For early investors, a valuation of 61 billion yuan is already enough to allow them to achieve success.

Primary market anticipating a surge in Yushu

For the primary market, Yushu's listing is crucial. Currently, the leading unlisted companies in the embodied intelligence sector have valuations reaching 20 to 30 billion yuan. Without Yushu experiencing substantial gains in the secondary market as an "anchor," subsequent high-valuation projects will be affected.

A CEO of a robotics company valued over 10 billion yuan told Tencent Technology that just like NIO’s stock price continued to decline after its IPO, leading to difficulties for XPeng in later financing, "even though companies may seem different, investors think you are all robots." They are all looking forward to soaring share prices for those companies that are the first to go public in the industry.

Several management personnel from robotics companies told Tencent Technology that the humanoid robots are eager to go public, partly to facilitate fundraising through primary and secondary market interlinking, and also often under pressure from the capital side, "On the surface, these institutions may seem not yet in the exit cycle, but once one goes public, subsequent companies will face enormous pressure from shareholders." A CEO of an embodied intelligence components company preparing for listing told Tencent Technology.

Some viewpoints equate the current embodied intelligence industry to the new energy sector of 2021, predicting that over 80% of companies will be eliminated. Concerns over future uncertainties in the capital market and the slow actual rollout of the industry contribute to widespread anxiety within the sector.

Capital is willing to pay 219.23 times the issuance PE ratio for Yushu — far exceeding the industry average PE ratio of 38.56 times — betting on the future that humanoid robots can fully replace human labor. However, currently, Yushu's earnings primarily come from robotic dogs. In its prospectus, Yushu admits, "The company has not yet scaled the research and development of its self-developed general embodied large models for application in robotic products during the reporting period. There is uncertainty over the large-scale application of general robots if substantial progress is not made in brain technology."

In other words, capital is paying for its market value based on the "brain," but currently, Yushu can only earn money by selling the "small brain."

Yushu is attempting to fill this crucial gap. Of the 6.099 billion yuan it plans to raise, there are specific allocations for intelligent robot model research and development projects. This is a necessary path for its transition from a "hardware manufacturer" to a "full-stack platform for embodied intelligence," and is key to supporting its market value.

No consensus in the secondary market, but actions are honest

If there is a consensus in the primary market, the influence of that consensus cannot yet be described as persistent in the secondary market.

In the current A-share environment, funding is relatively tight, with established value stocks and sectors like semiconductors siphoning off a significant amount of capital. What is regarded in the eyes of primary market investors as "embodied intelligence/Physical AI" might just appear to be a hardware company facing valuation pressures to some secondary market funds. A public fund personnel told Tencent Technology that the gap between these two logics is one of the sources of uncertainty Yushu will face after its IPO.

The circulating share count of Yushu on its first day of trading was very small, amplifying this emotional battle. Yushu Technology's total public offering is 40.4464 million shares, but the initial issuance for online investors is only 6.471 million shares, accounting for 16% of the total. The remaining 84% of shares are allocated to institutional investors through strategic placement (8.0893 million shares, accounting for 20%, locked for 12 to 24 months) and offline placement (25.8861 million shares, accounting for 64%). Of the total share capital of 404.4643 million shares after issuance, only about 29.77 million shares were tradable on the first day, accounting for about 7.36% of the total. More than 90% of shares were locked on the first day of trading. Under limited supply conditions, should market sentiment soar, price elasticity will be significantly amplified.

The aforementioned public fund personnel told Tencent Technology that the speculation in the secondary market regarding Yushu has consistently shown the typical characteristics of "event-driven, high surges followed by drops." He believes that this attention has very limited sustainability, "often wherever it rises, it falls back again — it cannot be sustained for the long term."

For example, prior to the 2026 Lunar New Year, funds speculated on humanoid robots making an appearance on CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, completing a round of speculation. On the evening of February 16, Yushu Technology and other companies showcased their humanoid robots. The favorable news quickly transformed into funds leaving the market. On February 20, the first trading day of the Hong Kong market in the Year of the Rat, stocks like Yuyuan and UBTECH surged high and quickly fell; just a few trading days later on February 24, the concept stocks of robots in the A-share market suffered a significant drop, with Wuzhou Xinchun experiencing a maximum intraday decline of over 9%, closing down 6.9%, while leading components firms like Lide Hexin and Wanxiang Qianchao led the sector down.

The process of Yushu Technology's sprint towards the Science and Technology Innovation Board was similarly volatile. It took only 104 days from being accepted on March 20 to getting registered approval on July 2, setting a record for the fastest review on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. On July 2, the CSRC approved Yushu Technology's IPO registration, and on the following day, A-share robotics concepts erupted, with over 50 stocks reaching the daily limit or soaring more than 10%. However, just three weeks before Yushu's IPO registration became effective and amidst a series of important AI conferences, the CSI Robotics Index dropped 12.77% in a week, and the STAR 50 fell by a total of 10.5% over three days. As expectations were realized ahead of time and the market lost incremental funds, the flight of capital under high congestion led to brutal price declines.

Throughout July, over 12 trillion yuan in market value evaporated from A-shares, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 6.4% cumulatively, the Shenzhen Component Index fell 16.21%, the ChiNext Index fell 23%, and the STAR 50 Index fell 25.90%, marking the largest single-month decline in history. AI concept stocks witnessed their most brutal month, with the two innovation indexes dropping 23% and 25.90%, while the semiconductor index plummeted over 33%.

In other words, the valuation anchor for Yushu does not actually depend on Yushu itself.

Several analysts focusing on the robotics sector pointed out that Tesla is still the one capable of driving the entire humanoid robotics industry, drawing parallels to the electric vehicle industry: it was only after the Tesla Model 3 scaled up that truly pure electric cars began to enter people's daily lives, leading to changes in domestic perceptions of electric vehicles and the rise of other brands. Even the Tesla chain, viewed as a barometer, faces enormous uncertainties.

The release expectation for the third generation of Tesla Optimus has been delayed to the first quarter of 2026, with core upgrades focused on hand flexibility and body structure. This continuous change at the design level means that the supply chain, which has been meticulously disassembled and repeatedly speculated by the market, faces the reconfiguration at any time. "Since the release of the first generation Optimus Prime, apart from comprehensive suppliers like Sanhua and Topband, the design materials, corresponding suppliers, and value of every joint have changed several times. The design we see today may have nothing to do with the design that will actually begin to proliferate in future humanoid robots," one analyst stated.

In this context, the aforementioned public fund personnel believes that the key for the entire humanoid robotics sector still hinges on whether Tesla can meet expectations. "If Tesla cannot achieve these expectations, and its own stock price is falling and in slump, and industry progress continues to fall below expectations, it will be difficult for Yushu to emerge with an independent upward trend."

Nevertheless, he said that there hasn’t been a single person around him who is not closely watching the new offering of Yushu.