Chinese tech companies, from Apple suppliers, to OpenAI competitors, raise $17 Billion in Hong Kong

Chinese tech firms, from robotaxi developers and AI startups to chipmakers, are flocking to Hong Kong’s booming capital market. They have raised a total of HK$136.23billion ($17.38billion) this year, to fund expansion in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing.

Some of the largest companies in the city have listed or sold shares recently:

In April, the world's biggest electric vehicle battery manufacturer launched a share sale of approximately HK$39.2billion ($5.00billion) less than a?year after its blockbuster Hong Kong IPO.

CATL's customers include Tesla, BMW and Volkswagen.

Chaozhou Three-Circle

The company's share offering was priced at the upper end of its marketed price range, raising about HK$7.16billion.

Dajin Heavy Industry

The wind power equipment manufacturer set its Hong Kong IPO offer price at HK$66.40 per share in June. It aimed to raise HK$5,77 billion.

Dajin, a Shenzhen listed company, said that it would use 55% to improve deep-sea power services and the remaining 20% to build an assembly and operation facility in Europe.

GigaDevice Semiconductor

GigaDevice Semiconductor, a Hong Kong-listed company, raised HK$4.68billion in a Hong Kong IPO in January. The proceeds will be used for R&D, strategic industry investments, and possible acquisitions.

The shares of the company soared by almost 40% on their Hong Kong debut, January 13,

Huaqin

In April, the smart device manufacturer raised HK$4.6 billion through a Hong Kong stock offering.

The company designs and manufactures electronic devices for major technology brands including smartphones, laptops and servers. They also design and manufacture wearables and smart home devices.

The shares of the company rose 17% on their Hong Kong debut.

Lingyi iTech

Apple's supplier priced its Hong Kong Initial Public Offering to raise approximately HK$8.3 Billion, hoping to use a part of the proceeds for expanding AI capability.

The company was founded in 2006 by Zeng Fangqin. It supplies parts for laptops, tablets, smartphones and other electronic devices. Huawei Technologies, Samsung Electronics, and others are among its clients.

Minimax Group

MiniMax Group raised HK$4.82billion in its Hong Kong IPO, after pricing shares at HK$165 per share,?the highest end of the marketed price range.

The company was one of the first Chinese large-language models developers to apply for a listing. It sold 29,2 million shares at the highest end of the marketed range.

MiniMax was founded by Yan Junjie (former SenseTime executive) in early 2022. It develops AI models with multimodal capabilities that can produce text, audio, videos, and images.

Momenta Global

The robotaxi company, backed by Mercedes-Benz, raised approximately HK$5.89 in a Hong Kong IPO. However the shares opened flat due to caution surrounding AI and other tech stock.

Cao Xudong, a former Microsoft researcher, founded Momenta in 2016, which offers assisted-driving systems to automakers including Toyota Motor, BYD and BYD.

Montage Technology

Montage Technology's prospectus revealed that it raised HK$7.04billion in a February share sale to fund research, acquisitions, strategic investments, or both, and working capital.

Investors attracted by the semiconductor designer included JPMorgan Asset Management (JPM), UBS Asset Management (UBS) and Yunfeng Capital.

Montage was founded in 2004 and designs integrated circuits to help speed up data movement in data centres and servers.

Nexchip Semiconductor

The chipmaker, which is a partially state-owned company, priced its offering at the 'top end' of its marketed range. It aims to raise approximately HK$6.98billion.

The company intends to spend more than HK$3.5billion from the proceeds of sales on research and 'development', and another HK$1.5billion on AI-powered'systems that integrate research, production and development processes.

OmniVision Integrated Circuits

OmniVision Integrated Circuits, which listed in Hong Kong in early January, raised HK$4.80billion and intends to spend about 70% of proceeds on research and development.

In its 'Hong Kong listing prospectus', the firm cites Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting firm, as stating that it is the world’s third largest?digital imaging sensor provider, with a market share of 13.7% based on revenue generated by digital imaging solutions.

Shanghai Biren Technology

Shanghai Biren Technology, a startup that develops AI chips, raised HK$5,58 billion when it listed in Hong Kong in December. The majority of the proceeds will be used for research and commercialisation.

Founded in 2019?Biren was founded by Jiao Guiofang and Zhang Wen. Jiao previously worked for Huawei and Qualcomm.

Knowledge?Atlas Technology JSC (also known as Zhipu AI)

A term sheet that was seen by.

Investors see the firm as a rising competitor to U.S. companies such as OpenAI. This is due to the strong demand for large-scale language models. ($1 = 7.8391 Hong Kong Dollars) (Reporting and editing by Christopher Cushing; Nichiket, Keshav, Singh, Chundawat in Bengaluru, Shivangi Lahiri, Roshan Thomas, Rajasik Mukherjee).

(source: Reuters)