China’s Unitree Robotics, which counts Meituan and HongShan among its investors, has set up a new entity in Hong Kong amid the firm’s accelerated business growth after the milestone TV gala debut of its humanoid robots.
Unitree, which made its name in late January with a folk dance performance by its Unitree H1 humanoid robots at the Spring Festival Gala—China’s most-watched TV programme—incorporated “Unitree Robotics Limited” in Hong Kong on March 6, according to its business registration.
The move came just a few days after the Hangzhou-based startup registered a wholly-owned subsidiary, “Shenzhen Tianyi Technology Limited,” in southern China’s Shenzhen City. It was also recruiting talent in Shanghai and the capital city of Beijing around February to help build its regional subsidiaries and manage local teams, according to a Chinese media report confirmed by a Unitree spokesperson.
The startup is also expanding the team based out of Hangzhou, with open positions for AI and deep learning algorithm engineers, mechanical engineers, overseas sales managers, among a range of other jobs listed on its official website.
Unitree has stepped up its market expansion pace amid a frenzy around embodied intelligence, thanks to the global hit launch of its Hangzhou-based artificial intelligence (AI) peer DeepSeek’s ChatGPT-rivalling R1 model in January.
On top of homegrown AI breakthroughs, Chinese AI-powered startups are also riding on political tailwinds that saw regional authorities from Beijing to Shenzhen prioritise the development of AI and robotics on their agendas with newly-established government funds to pour billions of US dollars into supporting the industry growth.
Unitree, founded in 2016, focuses on the R&D, production, and sales of general-purpose quadruped robots and humanoid robots for consumer and industry-grade applications.
Its latest funding round was announced in February 2024, when Unitree raised nearly 1 billion yuan ($137.7 million) in a Series B2 round from investors including food delivery giant Meituan, venture capital (VC) firm Source Code Capital, and CITIC Securities-affiliated Goldstone Investment.
HongShan and Vertex Ventures China were among Unitree’s Pre-A investors.
