Zhihu, the China-based online answer provider backed by livestreaming platform developer Kuaishou and internet companies Sogou, Baidu and Tencent, has filed for a $100m initial public offering in the United States.
Founded in 2010, Zhihu runs an online platform with more than 75 million monthly active users who can crowdsource answers to any question. It almost halved its net loss to $79.3m in 2020 while more than doubling revenue to $207m in the same period.
The $100m figure is a placeholder amount for an offering set to be considerably larger. The company last raised money at a valuation of nearly $3.5bn, in a $434m series F round in 2019 led by $250m from Kuaishou and backed by $150m from Baidu, $24m from Tencent and $10m from private equity firm Capital Today.
Tencent and Capital Today both contributed to Zhihu’s $270m series E round the year before, a round featuring $30m from insurer Sunshine Life and additional funding from Advantech Capital and Oceanpine Capital, according to the IPO filing.
The company had previously secured $100m in a 2017 series D round featuring Tencent, Sogou, Capital Today, Qiming Venture Partners and Sinovation Ventures that increased its overall funding to $890m.
Tencent led a $55m series C round for Zhihu the previous year at a $300m valuation. Its earlier backers include SAIF Partners, Qiming Venture Partners and private investor Kai-Fu Lee’s Innovation Works vehicle.
Innovation Works is the company’s largest external shareholder, the owner of a 13.1% stake, followed by Tencent (12.3%), Qiming Venture Partners (11.3%), SAIF Partners (9.3%), Kuaishou vehicle Cosmic Blue Investments (8.3%) and Capital Today (6.8%).
Credit Suisse Securities (USA), Goldman Sachs (Asia) and JP Morgan Securities are the named underwriters for the offering, which is set to take place on the New York Stock Exchange.
