{"id":4884,"date":"2026-07-14T00:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/chinese-humanoid-startups-are-rushing-to-list\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T00:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:57:08","slug":"chinese-humanoid-startups-are-rushing-to-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/chinese-humanoid-startups-are-rushing-to-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese humanoid startups are rushing to list"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"RegularArticle-ArticleBody-5\" data-module=\"ArticleBody\" data-test=\"articleBody-2\" data-analytics=\"RegularArticle-articleBody-5-2\"><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-108333790\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>\n<p>Humanoid robot startup LimX Dynamics shows off its products at its Shenzhen, China, office on July 3, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Evelyn Cheng | CNBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>BEIJING \u2014 Humanoid startup LimX Dynamics is getting ready to go public, just over four years after it was founded during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Listing is a must,&#8221; said founder Will Zhang, emphasizing the importance of timing. He was speaking to reporters ahead of the company&#8217;s announcement Tuesday that it had raised $200 million in a pre-IPO round. <\/p>\n<p>Zhang compared the situation to Chinese electric car startups <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-1\">Nio<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>, <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-2\">Xpeng<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> and <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-3\">Li Auto<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>, which successively listed in the U.S. from 2018 to 2020. &#8220;Once the technology is mature, if [the company] doesn&#8217;t list, then like WM Motor, it may disappear,&#8221; he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.<\/p>\n<p>Several overseas investors, including UAE-based Stone Venture, Italy-based GGG and Germany-based Redstone VC participated in LimX&#8217;s latest round, which valued the startup at 15 billion yuan ($2.21 billion), according to a press release.<\/p>\n<p>The startup said it was already preparing for its IPO, likely in Hong Kong, and is in a confidential phase of review.<\/p>\n<p>The urgency comes as China now has well over 100 humanoid companies, which fall under the national push for &#8220;embodied AI.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Reflecting a rapid surge in interest, investment in the sector hit 47.09 billion yuan ($6.95 billion) in the second quarter, more than double that of the first quarter \u2014 and up over six times versus the same period last year, according to industry data provider Xiniu. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"ArticleBody-subtitle\">A new phase<\/h2>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>China has fast-tracked approval for humanoid company Unitree to list in Shanghai, while Hong Kong processes applications from more than 500 companies across sectors.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With more industrial and collaborative robot companies potentially coming to IPO, competitive pressure is likely to persist,&#8221; Morgan Stanley said in a report last week, noting sector players DeepRobot and Leju that are looking to list soon. <\/p>\n<p>The investment firm forecasts 18% growth in China&#8217;s industrial robots market this year, and shipment of 50,000 humanoids.<\/p>\n<p>LimX aims to create fully autonomous commercial service robots. The company said it will kick off a multi-year plan to ship thousands of humanoids to the Middle East, and is delivering its entertainment-focused Luna humanoid to customers in South Korea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>To founder Zhang, the technology behind humanoid robots has already crossed the &#8220;0 to 1&#8221; line of innovating from scratch. The next barrier to entry, he said, lies in making a good product that meets users&#8217; needs.<\/p>\n<p>Other backers in the latest funding round include Chinese precision parts company Lens Technology, IDG Capital, WestSummit Capital, Nio Capital and Hefei Binhu Industry Development Group, the release said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ArticleBody-googlePreferredSourceContainer\" data-module=\"GooglePreferredSource\" data-id=\"RegularArticle-GooglePreferredSource-5\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humanoid robot startup LimX Dynamics shows off its products at its Shenzhen, China, office on July 3, 2026. Evelyn Cheng | CNBC BEIJING \u2014 Humanoid startup LimX Dynamics is getting ready to go public, just over four years after it was founded during the pandemic. &#8220;Listing is a must,&#8221; said founder Will Zhang, emphasizing the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1038,1495,985,3610,2808],"class_list":["post-4884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-chinese","tag-humanoid","tag-list","tag-rushing","tag-startups"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}