Yushu Robotics IPO Prospectus Revealed: Humanoid Robots Are the Top Global Shipments, Commercialization Relies on Schools and Research Institutions

RobuTree is about to list on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a $620 million IPO. This prospectus fully reveals the financial details of a profitable robotics company for the first time: by 2025, the shipment of humanoid robots will reach 5,500 units, ranking first worldwide, but 74% are sold to academic institutions, with only 9% truly applied in industrial scenarios. This picture exposes the current industry reality—hardware has been proven viable, but commercial deployment still awaits AI models to catch up.

Deep Tide Guide: RobuTree Robotics is about to go public on the STAR Market with a $620 million IPO, and the prospectus first discloses the complete financial data of a profitable robot company. The company’s humanoid robot shipments will reach 5,500 units in 2025, the largest globally, but 74% are sold to universities for research, with only 9% used in actual industrial scenarios—this is the truth of the current robot industry: hardware is operational, but commercialization is waiting for AI models to catch up.

RobuTree recently submitted an IPO application to the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, planning to raise $620 million. This prospectus is quite interesting because it clearly shows us the real state of the current robot market.

RobuTree is already profitable, growing rapidly, and the world’s leading in humanoid robot shipments.

RobuTree IPO: $620 million financing reveals the truth about robots

1. What does RobuTree produce?

Founded in 2016 in Hangzhou, RobuTree’s founder Wang Xingxing is a self-taught robotics expert who built his first quadruped robot in his apartment. The company currently has 480 employees, about 175 of whom are engaged in R&D.

The company sells two product lines:

Quadruped robots: Go2 (consumer and research grade), B2 (industrial grade), and A2

Humanoid robots: H1, H2, G1, and R1. G1 is the model you might have seen in viral videos, standing 1.32 meters tall and weighing 35 kilograms.

Since 2018, the company has begun international sales. Over 35% of revenue comes from regions outside China, including many U.S. academic clients.

2. Revenue structure shifting toward humanoid robots

Two years ago, RobuTree was basically a dog robot company, mainly selling quadruped robots. In 2023, humanoid robots accounted for only 1.9% of revenue.

Humanoid shipment surge: 5,500 units globally dominate the academic market

By the first three quarters of 2025, humanoid robots have accounted for over half of core revenue.

This shift is driven by improved product-market fit and aggressive marketing strategies. The company’s humanoid robots have been featured on CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala for two consecutive years, one of the most-watched programs worldwide. Jensen Huang showcased RobuTree robots on stage at the 2024 GTC conference.

This brand exposure has translated into commercial and scientific research demand, something most Chinese hardware companies have never truly achieved.

The shipment data for humanoid robots is especially impressive. RobuTree is expected to ship about 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025, making it the largest humanoid robot manufacturer by shipment volume globally. China’s Zhiyuan Robotics is the closest competitor. In comparison, well-known American companies like Figure AI and Agility Robotics only ship a few hundred units.

The five-year target in the IPO prospectus is an annual production of 75k humanoid robots and 115k quadruped robots. This is roughly 14 times the humanoid shipment volume in 2025. The target is aggressive but also highlights how early we still are in this industry.

3. Who are the real buyers of robots?

The prospectus divides buyers into three categories: scientific research and education, commercial consumption, and industrial applications.

In reality, most demand for humanoid robots currently comes from scientific research and education.

Industrial deployment crashes: only 9% truly applied in commercial scenarios

1/ 74% of humanoid robot revenue/shipment volume comes from scientific research and education. Academic buyers have been the core support since at least 2022 and remain the largest source of income.

2/ 17% of humanoid robots are sold for commercial consumption. Non-academic consumers mainly use these robots for “display”: attracting attention in retail stores, tourist spots, performances, and exhibitions. Revenue from consumer sales in the first nine months of 2025 has nearly quadrupled year-over-year, which sounds impressive, but the base is very small. In reality, these $25k humanoid robots are currently used mainly to stand at store entrances in Shenzhen to attract visitors.

3/ Industrial applications account for only 9% of humanoid robot shipments. RobuTree admits industrial deployment is more limited because the technology is not yet mature, reflecting the current technical state. Of this 9%, about 50-70% are used for enterprise reception and guiding scenarios, so overall only 3-4% of humanoid robots are shipped for enterprise reception and inspection work.

For quadruped robots, the situation is somewhat better: only about one-third of revenue comes from research, over 40% from commercial use, and the rest from industrial applications. Use cases there are relatively mature. Clients include State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, Sinopec, China National Petroleum, Baowu Group, and JD.com (RobuTree’s largest customer). These companies deploy quadruped robots for real inspection scenarios such as chemical plants, substations, coal mines, and pipelines.

4. Vertical integration strategy

RobuTree’s unique approach is designing and manufacturing most key components in-house: high-torque motors, precision reducers, encoders, joint modules, intelligent controllers, high-precision sensors, dexterous hands, laser radars, and cameras. According to McKinsey, drive systems (motors, reducers, and joint systems that enable robot movement) typically account for 40-60% of the total material cost of humanoid robots.

Most companies in this field source these parts externally, but RobuTree manufactures them itself. External procurement accounts for only about 14-18% of total costs. They outsource only common parts like batteries, flash memory, and core computing boards.

The unit manufacturing cost of quadruped robots dropped from about $3,300 in 2022 to about $1,800 in mid-2025, a 46% reduction. The cost of humanoid robots also decreased, from about $10,800 to $9,200 in the same period.

Interestingly, as shown below, the average selling price of both quadruped and humanoid robots has also decreased significantly each year. However, gross profit margins have actually expanded during this period, from over 40% in 2022-2023 to nearly 60% in 2025, largely due to their vertical integration strategy.

Vertical integration drives explosive growth: gross margin soars to nearly 60%

5. Financial status

Revenue increased from $58 million in 2024 to an estimated $252 million in 2025, a 335% jump, mainly driven by strong performance in humanoid robots. For most of the company’s history, international sales accounted for over 55% of revenue. In 2025, the domestic Chinese market surpassed exports for the first time, even though the absolute value of export revenue still more than doubled year-over-year.

Gross margin approaches 60% and has been expanding for years.

In comparison: most hardware companies have gross margins of 30-40%. Software companies often reach 70-80%. For a company selling physical robots, RobuTree’s gross margin is relatively high, thanks to their vertical integration and differentiated products.

The company achieved profitability under GAAP standards in 2024, with an operating margin of about 18%, and an adjusted basis approaching 35%.

RobuTree’s IPO target valuation is approximately $6-7 billion.

6. Ambitions in the model layer

RobuTree plans to allocate nearly half of the IPO proceeds to software development. Of the $620 million raised, about $300 million will be used over the next three years for AI model training, with about $100 million annually invested in what they call “embodied large models.”

Model layer ambitions: $300 million bet on embodied large models

The prospectus describes two parallel model architectures. The first is VLA (Visual-Language-Action): a model that directly maps visual and language inputs to motor commands, enabling robots to generalize in unfamiliar tasks without manual coding. The second, which they favor more, is WMA (World Model + Action). WMA constructs an internal simulation of physical reality. Robots predict what will happen before acting, rather than purely learning through trial and error.

They have already released initial versions of both. In September 2025, they open-sourced UnifoLM-WMA-0; in January 2026, they released UnifoLM-VLA-0.

They also detail the approximate expenditure distribution for models, as shown below:

RobuTree’s current hardware lead is real, but the company understands that a lasting advantage in robotics may require controlling the model layer: the system that decides what the robot does and how it moves. Software ambitions are also a hedge against commoditization. RobuTree has built a moat in hardware manufacturing.

But if actuators and joint modules eventually become standardized parts like batteries in electric vehicles, defensibility will shift to the model layer.

7. Summary

RobuTree has a profitable hardware business, a genuine manufacturing moat, and the largest humanoid robot shipment volume among all competitors, with prices that others cannot match. But as shown by the actual usage of humanoid robots, widespread commercial application stories are still in early stages. “Display” use cases dominate consumer demand, and industrial deployment remains narrow.

RobuTree has revealed the current state of the robot market, with much work still needed in models, hardware, and use cases.