Unitree Funding Story Exhibition

@Yihao Zhang @Zhiyan Chen

In 2018, Xingxing Wang secured his first investment of 2 million yuan.

It came from Variable Capital, a fund under GeekPark, marking Unitree's first institutional financing and its second investment overall after Fangming Yin.

This story has been told many times: back then, Xingxing Wang barely fit the VC industry's mold — not a PhD from a prestigious university, no overseas background, no executive experience at a major tech firm. The quadruped robots he was building were an obscure direction with no clear market.

When the funding ran low, Xingxing Wang once had to pay salaries out of his own pocket.

In industry parlance, Xingxing Wang was decidedly "non-consensus." So until Unitree's robot dogs appeared on the 2021 Lunar New Year Gala and the Go1's price dropped to 16,000 yuan, fundraising remained difficult.

It wasn't until the B2 round in early 2024, when Meituan, Goldstone Investment, Source Code Capital and others entered en masse, that Unitree completed its transformation from "what's the point of robot dogs?" to "who can still get a piece of Unitree?" — becoming, at last, a consensus pick in the primary market.

On the big day of its IPO, elsewhere decided to present this funding story differently.

We reached out to some of Unitree's investors and asked them for old artifacts — WeChat conversations with Xingxing Wang from seven years ago, investment memos from filing cabinets, photos and videos stored on phones — to concretely reconstruct this long journey.

Entrepreneurship is a nine-deaths-one-life endeavor. Investing early in a great company is probably less than a 1% probability. That is precisely what makes Unitree and its funding story so compelling.

Ancient tales carry a special charm. What follows is an online exhibition of Unitree's funding story.

A WeChat Friend Found Through a QQ Email

In July 2019, Yannan Li, then an analyst at HSG, heard about Unitree from a senior at Zhejiang University.

The Unitree website listed only a QQ email. Li reverse-engineered the WeChat ID from the email and sent Xingxing Wang a friend request.

Three days later, Li made his first visit.

Taking the Sleeper Train to Beijing

Li still keeps in his phone the footage from July 21, 2019 — his first visit to Unitree, when Xingxing Wang showed him AlienGo.

A month later, Xi Cao, then a partner at HSG, and Li brought Unitree to the investment committee. Before the IC meeting, Xingxing Wang proactively offered to bring a robot dog to Beijing for a live demo — the A1, "fits in a 20-inch suitcase." Because the robot dog's batteries exceeded limits, it couldn't go on planes or high-speed rail. He took a sleeper train for over ten hours from Hangzhou to Beijing. After the demo, he took the sleeper back.

Before the Sequoia IC meeting, Xingxing Wang asked Li: "Would it be convenient to bring a doggo?"

Li later noticed that whenever there was a chance to showcase the product, Xingxing Wang was always enthusiastic. For several years running, he proactively offered to bring robot dogs to Sequoia's CEO summits and LP meetings. One year when there was no booth, he waited outside the venue with his robot dog.

An 8 Out of 10

When Sequoia's partners scored Unitree, Xi Cao, then a partner at the seed fund, gave it an 8 — the highest score among those present.

Those familiar with Sequoia's IC scoring system know what an 8 means. As Yuan Gong previously described on our video podcast, an 8 means "must invest."

One line in this memo is particularly interesting: "Really like this person."

A Seriously Lopsided Outlier

In one VC's internal assessment, the founder section evaluated Xingxing Wang as follows: "Seriously lopsided — started learning code and researching mechanics at 13, developed his first robot in college. A typical outlier among non-traditional backgrounds. No particular weaknesses identified so far; has some persistent communication patterns when interacting with others, but not necessarily a bad thing, overall impact limited."

Xingxing Wang's master's thesis

The Books of an 18-Person Company

In March 2020, Monad Ventures' investment committee materials recorded Unitree as it was then —

18 people total, 70% technical; 2019 full-year revenue of 11.8282 million yuan, net margin 26.5%, R&D expenses 41% of revenue.

Customer list in two columns: 30 domestic, mostly university and research institute labs; 12 international, including Google, Nvidia, Apple, and Android co-founder Andy Rubin.

The benchmark then was Boston Dynamics, whose comparable product was still renting for nearly $10,000 per month, while Unitree's Laikago sold for 20,000–30,000 yuan.

Unitree's 2019 financials. After comparing data across competing products, Monad Ventures identified Unitree's advantages: superior locomotion performance, highest integration, lowest cost, and clear product positioning and target customers.

A Bizarre Interview Exam

Xingxing Wang has his own system for reading people. In early hiring, every candidate had to complete a 12-question written exam — receptionists included. Beyond professional competence, the questions were odd, including: Over the past few centuries, humanity's significant technological advances have all emerged from the West — what do you think caused this? How do you view and evaluate Traditional Chinese Medicine? And so on.

We also found a "spot the difference" image puzzle. Feel free to give it a try.

Unitree in Investment Memos

We also found some written materials from different investors' decision-making processes. The following comes from multiple partners across multiple firms, both positive and negative.

The "Tech Tree" of Growth

Unitree's funding history clearly divides into distinct phases:

At founding, it first received 2 million yuan in seed investment from Fangming Yin, then brought in angel funding from Variable Capital, ARM Accelerator, Binhe Investment and others, mainly supporting quadruped robot prototyping and productization.

After 2019, HSG, Vertex Ventures China, Shunwei Capital, Monad Ventures, Matrix Partners China and others entered successively, and Unitree moved into a phase of technology validation and commercial expansion.

After 2024, from growth-stage investors' perspective, Unitree had evolved — and stayed the same.

In mid-2024, Luminous Ventures found an entry point at a 3.5 billion yuan valuation. This is the investment memo partner Jia Zhu wrote in his phone's notes app at the time.

At end of 2023, Source Code Capital left this record —

Unitree's robot dog training ground was on the rooftop; the robot dogs had to climb stairs from the office every day. After much climbing and falling, the edges of those stair steps were chipped and broken. The debris would be cleaned up, but the stairs were never specially renovated — swept clean and kept in use. "From this detail, what you see is a team still devoting its main energy to product testing and R&D iteration."

Yungang Huang, managing partner at Source Code Rhythm, said: "Xingxing is an extremely restrained entrepreneur, not blindly pouring in resources. Even after Unitree became hot and had more resources, strategically he still prioritized getting the hardware and cerebellum right."

Meanwhile, Jinqiu Fund observed Unitree from 2020 to 2025. "Found Unitree to be extremely focused." What truly moved Jinqiu was that Unitree was in fact number one in market share. "80% of papers are published based on Unitree platforms — a massive ecosystem advantage." Another technical judgment: reinforcement learning-based motion control brought a key technical variable.

At a Jinqiu Fund closed-door meeting, Xingxing Wang discussed the meaning behind Unitree's name, and how he likes watching anime to relax.

Saved in the Camera Roll

In November 2021, Huadong Wang, managing partner at Matrix Partners China, personally ordered a Go1 during due diligence on Unitree. He said: "I was probably among the earliest individual consumers in China to buy a Go1." In the photo, Wang's children are curiously playing with the Go1 after it arrived.

In the second half of 2018, when Unitree's Laikago officially shipped, it had already sold hundreds of units overseas. This is from when Vertex Ventures China later helped Unitree connect with overseas clients — Xingxing Wang explaining the specific parts of the G1 "Iron Boxing Champion" to everyone.

Luminous Ventures partner Jia Zhu put an R1 in his office; from pre-order to delivery, he waited nearly half a year. On arrival day, the two shook hands.

On April 16, 2025, the G1 and Snow King greeted guests together at Meituan Longzhu's investor annual meeting. Unitree and Mixue were representative projects in technology and consumer for Longzhu respectively; Longzhu's investors found the pairing amusing, hence this photo.

Monolith founding partner Xi Cao placed two Unitree products at the entrances of his Shanghai and Beijing offices: one a G1 receptionist wearing a Monolith uniform with bow tie, the other a robot ox named "Niu Benben." This "Niu Benben" was a gift from Xingxing Wang to Cao after Unitree's robot dogs first appeared on the 2021 Spring Festival Gala.

Incidentally, "Niu Benben" was modified from the A1. The same model as the "doggo" stuffed into that suitcase and taken on the sleeper train to Beijing in 2019.

Cover image: Vittore Carpaccio, Letter Rack (verso), 1490–1495, J. Paul Getty Museum