BlueCity Holdings, the China-based owner of gay dating app Blued, floated in an $84.8m initial public offering on Wednesday enabling corporates New World Development and China Mobile Games and Entertainment to exit.
The company priced 5.3 million American depositary shares (ADSs), each representing two common shares, at $16.00 each, at the mid-point of the IPO’s $15 to $17 range. Its shares closed at $25.99 on the Nasdaq Global Market yesterday, valuing it at approximately $462m.
Blued’s gay dating and social media app has more than 49 million registered users and averages 6 million monthly active users. It increased revenue by more than 50% to $107m in 2019 while more than halving its net loss to $7.5m at the same time.
About $30m of the IPO proceeds will go to an international growth drive that will include spending on marketing and promotion. Another $22.5m will support technology upgrades in areas such as artificial intelligence technology and big data.
Venture capital firm Shunwei Capital and VC fund Crystal Stream are among the company’s earlier investors. Alternative asset manager CDH Investments led its $100m series D round in early 2018, investing with UG Capital in a round that represents its last funding.
Mobile content provider China Mobile, property developer New World, Vision Knight Capital and Ventech had invested a nine-figure renminbi sum (RMB100m = $15m) in Blued two years earlier, valuing it at $300m.
Founder and CEO Baoli Ma remains Blued’s largest shareholder, with a 36.4% stake post-IPO, followed by Shunwei Ventures (10.4%), CDH Investments (8%), investment holding vehicle Liberty Hero (6.5%), Crystal Steam (4.9%) and NewQuest Capital Partners (4.3%).
Underwriters AMTD Global Markets, Loop Capital Markets, Tiger Brokers (NZ), Prime Number Capital and RF Lafferty have 30 days to buy up to 795,000 extra shares which would lift the size of the offering to $97.5m.
