Mogu, the China-based owner of fashion e-commerce platform Mogujie, has secured $66.5m in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange that gave exits to corporates Bertelsmann, Ping An and Tencent.
The company issued 4.75 million American depositary shares, each representing 25 class A ordinary shares, at a price of $14 each, at the foot of the IPO’s $14 to $16 range.
The shares opened at $12.07 on Thursday morning and reached a peak of $14.21 on Friday before closing at $13.48.
Founded in 2011, Mogu operates an online platform that enables users to purchase fashion items and access curated content such as live video broadcasts that have embedded links allowing viewers to directly buy onscreen products from partner brands and merchants.
The company counted an average of 62.6 million monthly active users in the year ending September 2018. The IPO proceeds have been allocated to content and technology development as well as strengthened collaborations with merchants.
Mogu had received at least $540m in equity funding. It merged with online fashion marketplace Meilishuo in January 2016, valuing the combined business at $3bn.
Tencent, which had invested an undisclosed amount in Meilishuo’s series D round in 2012, supplied $100m for Mogu in February 2016 and acquired additional shares when it established a business cooperation agreement with it in July this year.
Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI), a local corporate venturing subsidiary of media conglomerate Bertelsmann, injected $20m in Mogu in 2012, before insurance provider Ping An’s corporate venture capital unit, Ping An Ventures, led a $200m round in 2015 that featured Tiantu Capital.
Mogu’s shareholders also include IDG Capital, Magnolia Fund, Hopu Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, Trustbridge Capital, Banyan Capital, Sequoia Capital, GGV Capital, BlueRun Ventures and Zero2IPO Ventures.
Tencent held an 18% stake ahead of the offering that was diluted to 17.2%. BAI’s shareholding has been reduced from 8% to 7.8% and Ping An’s has dropped from 6.3% to 6.1%. Trustbridge purchased just over 5,000 shares in the offering to retain an 8% stake, down from 8.2%.
Qi Chen, co-founder and chairman of Mogu, owns a 11.3% share of the company, down from 11.9%, while Hillhouse holds 9.8% post-IPO, Qiming 6% and Sequoia 4.3%.
Morgan Stanley International, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) and China Renaissance Securities were joint bookrunners for the offering. They have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to 713,000 more ADSs, which would boost the IPO by nearly $10m.
