Unitree Robotics Issues Scam Warning Amid Rising Investor Interest

Unitree Robotics, one of the hottest start-ups in China, issued a warning about scams that aimed to exploit growing interest from investors seeking to acquire shares of the privately held company amid a frenzy around the humanoid robot sector.

“All new Unitree shares and old equity belonging to shareholders are directly managed by the company’s financing head and communicated through official email,” the Hangzhou-based company said in a WeChat post on Wednesday. “There is no middleman, middle shareholder or middle company.”

Unitree has emerged as an attractive investor target after its founder Wang Xinxing was seen seated in the front row at Chinese President Xi Jinping’s high-profile business symposium last week. Wang, 35, was the youngest among an elite group of tech executives in attendance, including Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei, 80, and Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma, 60.

Stocks associated with Unitree have surged in China’s market in recent weeks, after the company’s H1 robots gave a folk dance performance during this year’s Spring Festival Gala aired by state broadcaster China Central Television – the country’s most-watched show. Zhejiang Changsheng Sliding Bearings, a robot-arm supplier to Unitree, has seen its share price more than triple this year.

Amid a surge in interest in Unitree, “there is now a lot of false information in the market, and almost all of it is fake,” the company said. “Please be careful to avoid being cheated.” Unitree’s valuation will reach at least 12 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) in its next funding round, according to Beijing-based angel investor Guo Tao, who does not own any stake in the start-up. “There have been too many investment institutions queuing up for a share,” he said.

Chinese tech news site 36Kr published a post listing three interested buyers of Unitree shares. Two of them valued the company at around 10 billion yuan. One seller was looking to offload its stake in a capital fund that owns shares of Unitree. Unitree was valued at 8 billion yuan during its previous funding round in September.

The momentum has also raised the valuation of other robotics companies. A Chinese technology investor stated, “It’s a fear-of-missing-out situation – even though valuations have gone up, we insisted on grabbing a share.” Wang founded Unitree in August 2016 after his self-developed prototype quadruped robot, XDog, received media coverage at home and abroad, helping it secure an angel investment of 2 million yuan.

Last year, Unitree raised over 1 billion yuan in two funding rounds. Its investors include a variety of high-profile backers, such as a Beijing municipal government-backed robotics fund, a Shanghai government technology fund, state-owned venture firm Shenzhen Capital Group, as well as Meituan’s venture capital arm, Xiaomi’s Shunwei Capital, HongShan Capital Group, Matrix Partners and Source Code Capital.

Wang remains Unitree’s controlling shareholder with a 33 percent stake, according to data from Chinese corporate information tracker Tianyancha.