Can You Apply for the Unitree Robotics IPO From Malaysia via moomoo? Here's the Honest Answer (2026)

Unitree’s dancing, backflipping robots have been all over your social feed for two years — and now the company behind them is going public. On 2 July 2026, China’s securities regulator approved Unitree Robotics for an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market, targeting up to RMB 4.2 billion (~US$620 million). Naturally, the question landing in every Malaysian trading group chat is the same: can I buy in through moomoo? We checked the actual mechanics. The honest answer is more interesting than a simple yes or no.

What’s actually happening with the Unitree IPO

Unitree filed for its listing on 20 March 2026 and won CSRC registration approval on 2–3 July — about 73 days, one of the fastest reviews the STAR Market has ever processed. The offering calls for at least 40.45 million new shares, roughly a 10% stake, with trading expected to begin as early as late July 2026. The numbers behind the hype are real too: FY2025 revenue of about RMB 1.7 billion (~US$251m) and adjusted profit near RMB 591 million, with humanoid robots growing from 27.6% of revenue in all of 2024 to 51.5% in just the first nine months of 2025.

So — can you subscribe to the actual IPO?

No. This is the part most quick “how to buy Unitree” guides skate past. Subscribing to a new Chinese A-share listing — the actual IPO allocation, before the stock starts trading — happens through a lottery system run for mainland Chinese brokerage accounts only. To even enter that lottery, an investor needs a domestic mainland securities account with a qualifying trading history. There is no version of this process that a Malaysian moomoo account, or any offshore brokerage account, can plug into. It isn’t a moomoo limitation specifically — it’s how China’s IPO allocation system works, full stop.

Wait — can you even trade Shanghai stocks via moomoo at all?

Yes, and this is worth being precise about, because “A-shares” isn’t one single gate — it’s two different markets with two different rulebooks. Ordinary Shanghai Stock Exchange main-board stocks — the SSE 180/380 blue chips, names like ICBC, PetroChina or Kweichow Moutai — are genuinely tradeable from Malaysia. moomoo (and most brokers offering China-A access) reach them through Stock Connect, the Shanghai/Shenzhen–Hong Kong trading link, and Northbound Stock Connect trading of ordinary SSE shares is open to all Hong Kong and overseas investors, retail included — no professional-investor status required.

The STAR Market (科创板) — the board Unitree is actually listing on — is the exception, and it’s a hard one. Since 1 February 2021, Stock Connect rules carved STAR Market shares out as institutional-professional-investor only, even for Northbound (overseas) access. This isn’t moomoo being cautious — it’s a structural rule set by the Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges themselves, and every broker offering Stock Connect is bound by it the same way. Domestically, mainland retail investors face a parallel bar: at least RMB 500,000 in average daily account assets over 20 trading days, plus 24 months of trading experience, just to unlock STAR Market access. Put simply: you can buy plenty of Shanghai-listed companies from Malaysia — just not the ones on the specific board Unitree is joining, unless you already qualify as a professional investor.

There’s also a timing wrinkle on top of the access gate. Stock Connect eligibility for STAR shares is reviewed periodically against index membership (the SSE 180/380 or A+H criteria above), not granted the instant a company lists — so even a professional-investor account likely couldn’t trade Unitree on day one even if the access tier were sorted. And Stock Connect, whenever it applies, only ever covers secondary trading of shares already on the market — never the IPO allocation itself.

What about a Hong Kong listing instead?

This would be the easy button — Hong Kong-listed stocks are simple to buy from Malaysia on moomoo, no special status required. Unfortunately, it isn’t on the table yet. Unitree’s founder, Wang Xingxing, has told Hong Kong officials a listing there remains a “future consideration” — welcome framing, but not a plan with a date. For now, Shanghai’s STAR Market is the only listing venue in motion.

What about warrants or CBBCs on Unitree?

A natural next question — if the shares are hard to reach, what about a derivative warrant or CBBC (callable bull/bear contract) instead? These are the leveraged, HKEX-listed products Malaysian moomoo accounts already trade freely on Hong Kong names. But there currently isn’t one on Unitree, and the gap is structural rather than a gap someone just hasn’t filled yet. HKEX’s own published list of eligible underlyings for single-stock derivative warrants is confined entirely to Hong Kong-listed companies — no mainland A-share or STAR Market name appears on it at all. Warrant issuers (banks like HSBC, UBS, Société Générale) need to hedge every warrant they sell by trading the real stock, and Unitree simply has no Hong Kong-listed shares for them to hedge against.

Put together with the earlier point: no HK listing means no warrant, no CBBC, and no ADR either. If Unitree ever completes that Hong Kong secondary listing its founder floated, single-stock HK warrants and CBBCs would very plausibly follow — issuers move quickly once a liquid, hedgeable HK-listed underlying exists. Until then, the closest a Malaysian investor can get is a broader product: HKEX-listed warrants or CBBCs on China-A-share indices (such as the FTSE China A50), which give diffuse, index-wide exposure to the same “Chinese tech/robotics” sentiment — not a bet on Unitree itself.

So what can a Malaysian investor actually do?

• Accept the IPO itself is off-limits. No route via moomoo or any other broker gets a foreign retail account into the allocation.
• Check your professional-investor status. If you already qualify for professional/institutional access on your platform, ask moomoo support directly whether Unitree will be tradeable for your account once listed and Stock-Connect-eligible — don’t assume.
• Watch for a future Hong Kong listing. If Unitree ever does a secondary HK listing — a common path for hot A-share names — that would open the door to ordinary Malaysian retail accounts.
• Get the theme, not the ticker. Humanoid-robotics exposure is available via Hong Kong- or US-listed robotics and automation names, or thematic ETFs, without fighting China’s IPO plumbing.
• Remember the AI-boom lesson. The same excitement that’s driving Unitree’s valuation is the AI-memory and chip demand we covered in the Micron & SanDisk piece — you may already have adjacent exposure through a semiconductor or tech fund.

The bottom line

Unitree’s IPO is a genuinely big deal for China’s robotics industry, and the excitement is warranted — but the honest answer for a Malaysian investor asking “can I get in through moomoo” is not right now, and not easily even after listing. Save the FOMO for something you can actually reach, and check today’s trending US and Bursa stocks for the AI and robotics names that already are.

Sources & further reading

• Caixin Global — Unitree Robotics wins approval for STAR Market IPO
• South China Morning Post — Unitree clears key hurdle to Shanghai IPO
• South China Morning Post — Unitree open to a future Hong Kong listing
• moomoo Malaysia Help Centre — China A-shares market rules
• moomoo Malaysia — Bursa IPO subscription service