China-based, corporate-backed online gaming company G-bits Network Technology has completed an initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, securing RMB961m ($138m), China Money Network reported on Wednesday.
The flotation, which valued the company at $791m, provided an exit to Ping An Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of insurance company Ping An Insurance, and IDG Capital Partners, a venture capital affiliate of technology research company International Data Group.
Established in 2004, G-bits has created a range of virtual reality and massive multiplayer online games situated in vast, persistent online worlds that players from all over the world can connect to and play in simultaneously.
G-bits is the first online gaming company to achieve such an offering in China, its peers in the past having instead chosen to float through reverse mergers.
Ping An Ventures contributed to a $23m funding round for G-bits in 2011 alongside VC firm Fortune Capital. IDG Capital Partners had earlier supplied an undisclosed sum in series A funding in 2007.