Kuaishou, a China-based video sharing app developer backed by internet groups Tencent and Baidu, is planning to raise up to $5bn in an initial public offering in Hong Kong, Reuters reported today.
The offering could take place as soon as January 2021 according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, who told Reuters the company would seek a valuation of $50bn. People familiar with the matter confirmed the prospective valuation to The Information.
Founded in 2011, Kuaishou runs a short-form video app known as Kwai or Zynn outside of China.
The company increased its daily active users from 100 million in December 2019 to 170 million as of July this year and its main competitor is Douyin, the ByteDance-owned app known as TikTok in the west.
Bank of America, China Renaissance and Morgan Stanley have been hired to work on the offering, with Kuaishou looking to file to go public as soon as October.
Kuaishou was valued at $28.6bn in its last round, a $3bn series F in December 2019 led by a $2bn investment from Tencent, which boosted its stake to about 20%. The corporate was joined in the round by Boyu Capital, Yunfeng Capital, Sequoia Capital and Temasek.
Tencent had previously led Kuaishou’s $350m series F round in 2017, reportedly valuing it between $18bn and $20bn.
Baidu and China Media Capital had co-led a round of undisclosed size for the company the year before at a $2bn valuation, and the former was reported to be interested in selling shares in the series F round. Kuaishou had received $10m from Sequoia Capital China and DCM Ventures in 2014.
