China-based online game streaming platform Douyu has confidentially filed for a $500m initial public offering that would enable internet company Tencent to exit, it confirmed to Beijing News yesterday.
The company plans to go public in the US. The news had originally been reported by IFR Asia on Tuesday, and it comes after reports in July 2018 that Douyu expected to raise between $600m and $700m in its IPO.
Douyu runs an online streaming platform with a reported 30 million daily active users that focuses on gaming and eSports. It also broadcasts on topics such as cookery, but is less known for its non-gaming content than rivals such as Huya, which is also backed by Tencent.
The company has disclosed some $477m in funding, including $100m in a 2016 series B round led by a $61.5m investment from Tencent and backed by game studio Zeus Interactive, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital China and investment firm Nanshan Capital.
Tencent and private equity firm Phoenix Capital co-led Douyu’s $227m series C round later the same year, investing alongside private equity firm Shenzhen Capital Group and the government-backed National SME Development Fund, before Tencent invested another $630m in March 2018.
Huya itself floated in the US in May 2018, in a $180m IPO that priced its shares at $12.00 each. Its share price peaked at $50.82 the following month and the company is currently trading at $19.38, giving it a market capitalisation of approximately $3.95bn.
Image courtesy of Douyu.
