Kuaishou Technology has its eyes set on the world’s largest initial public offering in more than a year, seeking to raise about $ 5 billion from Hong Kong stock sales as short video and streaming applications live are increasing in popularity in China.
Kuaishou, which competes with ByteDance Ltd., the rival Chinese company behind TikTok and its sister app Douyin, began receiving orders from investors on Monday. With the offer, which could be valued at more than $ 60 billion, Kuaishou joins a number of Chinese technology companies that have been listed in Hong Kong.
Kuaishou, which means “fast hand” in Chinese, is backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. It was co-founded by Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao, software engineers who previously worked for Google China and Hewlett Packard, respectively.
Both Kuaishou and ByteDance have taken advantage of the growing demand from younger Chinese to watch and record short videos on their smartphones. Its short video platform of the same name is the second largest in the world, according to data quoted in its brochure, and there were 305 million daily active users averaging its applications and mini-programs in China during the nine months of September.
With a minimum transaction size of $ 4.959 billion, the IPO would be the largest in the world since late 2019, when the state-controlled Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco, raised $ 29,400. millions of dollars, according to Dealogic data.