CooTek, a China-based mobile app developer that counts technology and trading group Susquehanna International Group (SIG) as an investor, has floated in the US in a $52.2m initial public offering.
The company issued 4.35 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs) on the New York Stock Exchange priced at $12.00 each, at the bottom of the IPO’s $12 to $14 range. Each ADS represents 50 ordinary shares.
CooTek’s lead product is TouchPal Smart Input, an input tool for mobile devices that generates significant amounts of user data, and launched an intelligent virtual assistant called Talia in March this year.
The company made a $3.5m net profit from $50.3m in revenue in the first half of 2018. It will put $15m of the IPO proceeds into research and development and the same amount into sales and marketing.
Although CooTek, which was founded in 2012, has not disclosed details of its early funding, it received $46m from SIG unit SIG China, Chance Talent Management, New Alliance CC, Qiming Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital China and Tranquility Communications in 2016.
A vehicle known as HG Qiandao invested $20m in CooTek in January 2017. Sequoia China bought approximately $5m of shares in the IPO and is now the company’s largest shareholder, with a 17.4% stake, down from 17.9%.
Qiming’s 18.2% stake was diluted to 16.9% while SIG China’s was cut from 14.2% to 13.3%. Four investment vehicles representing CooTek executives hold a combined 25% of the company post-IPO.
Credit Suisse Securities (USA), Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith and Citigroup Global Markets are joint bookrunners for the IPO while KeyBanc Capital Markets is co-manager.
The underwriters have a 30-day option to buy another 652,000 shares to lift the size of the offering to $60m. CooTek’s shares began trading on Friday last week and closed at $9.18 yesterday.
