On August 19, Unitree Robotics listed on Shanghai’s Star Market with a market capitalization of about RMB 61 billion (USD 9 billion) at its offer price, becoming the latest of Hangzhou’s “six little dragons” to reach the public markets.
By the morning close, Unitree’s shares had risen 486.12% from its IPO offer price, pushing its market capitalization as high as RMB 357.5 billion (USD 53 billion). The surge reinforced investor interest in embodied intelligence and raised the valuation benchmark for Chinese hard technology companies.
The rest of Hangzhou’s closely watched startup cohort is also moving toward the public markets. Manycore Tech has already listed in Hong Kong, while Deep Robotics has disclosed its response to a first round of Star Market listing inquiries. Market reports have also said BrainCo filed a confidential application for a Hong Kong listing in January.
Demand for Unitree’s IPO illustrated the scarcity premium investors have attached to the sector. Public data showed an average offline allocation rate of about 0.0334% before the IPO, while the online lottery allocation rate was just 0.0181%, making shares in the offering difficult to secure.
That has sharpened the question of which Chinese hard technology company could next reach a valuation of RMB 100 billion (USD 14.8 billion) or more.
Two names stand out for different reasons. BrainCo is commercializing noninvasive brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, while DeepSeek has drawn attention for developing high-performing large language models at relatively low cost.
BrainCo’s case as a scarce BCI company
BrainCo is drawing attention partly because relatively few BCI companies have reached meaningful commercial scale.
BrainCo and Neuralink represent different approaches to the technology. Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk in 2016, is developing invasive systems aimed primarily at medical applications. BrainCo has focused on noninvasive technology designed for broader deployment.
BCI technology spans areas including medical rehabilitation, human-machine interaction, and embodied intelligence. Some products are beginning to move beyond laboratory settings, but long development cycles, heavy R&D spending, and delayed profitability remain barriers to commercialization.
That has left relatively few independent listed companies with BCI as a core business. Hong Kong’s Chapter 18A and 18C listing regimes also provide routes to the public markets for certain pre-revenue or pre-profit biotechnology and specialist technology companies.
As of March 31, BrainCo said it had served more than 150,000 end users across more than 35 countries and regions. Overseas sales accounted for nearly 30% of its revenue in 2025, while its smart bionic hand had reached a production scale of 100,000 units.
BrainCo describes itself as having a full-stack BCI technology platform spanning neural signal acquisition, artificial intelligence-based signal decoding, and closed-loop feedback control.
The company said its hydrogel electrode technology can turn traditionally complex and expensive medical-grade signal acquisition systems into portable devices while retaining about 95% of medical-grade accuracy. It also said deep learning has improved its ability to recognize motor intent and that it was the first company to use neural activity decoding to enable independent finger movement in a thought-controlled bionic hand.
BrainCo has disclosed 538 registered patents, including 303 invention patents, and 790 patent applications. Its smart bionic hand received US Food and Drug Administration clearance in 2022, which the company describes as the first such clearance for a Chinese BCI device.
A commercialization-first approach
DeepSeek offers a different example of how Chinese technology companies can build value around engineering efficiency.
Over the past two years, the company has attracted attention for lowering the cost of training and running high-performing AI models. Its rise has also strengthened Hangzhou’s reputation as a center for Chinese hard technology development.
DeepSeek was initially financed largely by High-Flyer, but reports indicate that its external fundraising has accelerated this year as its valuation has risen.
DeepSeek was initially reported in April to be seeking its first external financing at a valuation of at least USD 10 billion. By June, the company had completed the round at a much higher valuation. A filing by A-share listed Korrun implied a post-money valuation of about RMB 350.9 billion (USD 52 billion), although Reuters cited sources putting it closer to RMB 450 billion (USD 66.7 billion). DeepSeek has since resumed talks for another round that could raise RMB 50 billion (USD 7.4 billion) at a target pre-money valuation of about RMB 500 billion (USD 74.1 billion).
DeepSeek did not build its position simply by making models larger. Much of its appeal has come from engineering improvements intended to make high-performing AI models cheaper to train and use.
BrainCo has taken a similarly pragmatic approach in a different field. Rather than pursuing the invasive route associated with Neuralink, it has focused on noninvasive BCI products that may face fewer barriers to broader deployment.
The comparison is imperfect, but both companies illustrate a broader pattern among Chinese hard technology businesses: technical differentiation becomes more valuable when it can be converted into products that are cheaper to deploy, easier to scale, or quicker to commercialize.
The test is whether those advantages can ultimately produce repeatable demand and sustainable economics.
How BrainCo could expand beyond rehabilitation
Three factors could shape how investors value BrainCo over time.
The first is market growth. Grand View Research estimated the serviceable obtainable market for noninvasive BCI at USD 397.6 million in 2025 and expects it to grow at a compound annual rate of 8.73% from 2026 through 2033.
The second is BrainCo’s expanding product mix. Its existing businesses include smart bionic prosthetics and BCI-based modulation products. The latter use lightweight headworn devices for applications including sleep improvement and attention enhancement, extending the company beyond products designed primarily for people with disabilities.
BrainCo is also expanding into dexterous hands for embodied intelligence.
Since launching the product line in 2024, the company has worked with humanoid robot developers including Unitree, Leju Robotics, and LimX Dynamics to integrate its dexterous hands into new machines.
This year, BrainCo launched the Revo 3 dexterous hand, which has 21 degrees of freedom, full-palm sensing, and a fully direct-drive, backdrivable architecture designed for precise movement and tactile sensing.
Around this technology base, BrainCo has organized its business into three areas: human-machine interaction products, BCI-based modulation products, and frontier BCI solutions.
The third factor is whether the same technology platform can support more applications.
BrainCo is extending its pipeline beyond rehabilitation into areas including weight management, pain management, cognitive enhancement, and early intervention for neurodegenerative diseases.
Under that thesis, BrainCo’s long-term value would depend less on any single device than on whether its BCI platform can support multiple commercially viable products.
Unitree offers one point of comparison. Part of its valuation rests on its position in humanoid robot hardware and its ability to manufacture at scale. BrainCo occupies a different position in the broader robotics value chain, supplying dexterous end effectors while also developing BCI technology that could serve as an input layer for machines.
Unitree’s market debut shows how strongly investors can reward scarce technology assets when expectations are high. But scarcity alone is unlikely to sustain those valuations. Ultimately, that will depend on whether technical differentiation translates into durable products, recurring demand, and cash flow.
This article was adapted based on a feature originally written by Luo Bin and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.75 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 20, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.