Qiniu, A China-based cloud services provider backed by e-commerce group Alibaba and telecommunications firm Telstra, has filed to raise $100m in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
Founded in 2011, Qiniu provides cloud storage and data analytics services for enterprise customers. It claims to have served more than 1 million customers to date, including China Merchants Bank and entertainment platform developer Bilibili.
The company reported $166m of revenue for 2020, up from $118m in the previous year. It listed a $2.9m net loss for the same period, down from $18.4m in 2019. The IPO proceeds will go to research and development activities, investments in Qiniu’s technology infrastructure, and strategic investments and acquisitions.
Qiniu raised $141m in series F funding from financial services firm Bank of Communications’ Bocom International subsidiary, Chinese state-owned China Structural Reform Fund and fund manager Jumbo Sheen’s Hongzhao Fund in June 2020.
Alibaba and Yunfeng Capital had co-led a $152m series E round for the company in 2017, following a separate 2016 round reportedly also totalling $152m that included Telstra, Zhangjiang High-Tech, Harvest Global Investments, CBC Capital, F&G Venture and GHII.
Qiniu secured tens of millions of dollars in a 2014 series C round led by CBC Capital and backed by Matrix Partners China and Qiming Venture Partners. The last two had provided an eight-figure dollar amount of funding for the company in 2013, after Matrix Partners China invested an eight-digit renminbi amount the previous year.
Alibaba subsidiary Taobao is the largest Qiniu shareholder in Qiniu, with a 17.7% stake, followed by Magic Logistics Investment, a vehicle for an investor called Feng Yu (12.4%), Matrix Partners China II (8%), China Structural Reform Fund (7.3%) and Qiming Venture Partners (6.8%).
BofA Securities, UBS Investment Bank, Jefferies, Bocom International, Futu and Tiger Brokers have been appointed underwriters for the IPO.