(Yicai) Jan. 9 -- MiniMax’s shares doubled in value on their first day of trading in Hong Kong, as it became the second major Chinese artificial intelligence startup to list and the fastest to go public worldwide.

MiniMax [HKG: 0100] closed 103 percent higher at HKD335 (USD42.97) per share today, after surging by as much as 108 percent at one point.

The firm, which is backed by the likes of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, game developer miHoYo, and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, sold about 29.2 million shares priced at HKD165 apiece, with 14 cornerstone investors, including Alibaba, Aspex Management, and Mirae Asset Financial Group, buying HKD2.7 billion (USD346 million) worth.

Investor demand was overwhelming. The initial public offering was oversubscribed 1,837 times by Hong Kong investors, triggering the clawback mechanism, while the international tranche was covered 37 times.

Zhipu AI, formally known as Knowledge Atlas Technology Joint Stock, became the first of China’s "six AI tigers" to go public. Its shares [HKG: 2513] also rose on debuting in Hong Kong yesterday, ending 14.4 percent higher. The other four tigers are Moonshot AI, 01.AI, Baichuan Intelligence, and Stepfun.

Founded in December 2021, Shanghai-based MiniMax rolled out its first text model in April 2022 and has since expanded rapidly into video, music, and open-source text models.

Roughly 70 percent of its IPO’s net proceeds will be used to research and develop large language models over the next five years, the prospectus said. About 20 percent will go to AI-native product development and marketing, and the rest will be used as operating capital and for general corporate purposes.

Model Portfolio

The company has built a model portfolio centered on MiniMax-M2, MiniMax Hailuo-02, and MiniMax Speech-02, which underpin consumer apps such as Hailuo AI and Talkie, as well as enterprise platforms. By last September, its products had amassed about 212 million users, including more than 1.77 million paying customers.

Founder Yan Junjie, 36, and his affiliates control about 26 percent of the voting rights tied to shareholder reserved matters. Among key backers, Alibaba has 15 percent of the rights, miHoYo 7.1 percent, International Data Group 3.1 percent and Tencent Holdings 2.8 percent.

Yan, a keen player of the battle arena game Dota 2, is also MiniMax’s chief executive and chief technology officer. He was previously a vice president at SenseTime’s research institute, where he helped to build foundational deep‑learning toolchains and general intelligence technology systems.

Alibaba, miHoYo, IDG, and Tencent are also controlling shareholders, according to its prospectus. Alibaba owns a 13.7 percent stake, miHoYo 6.4 percent, and Tencent 2.6 percent.

MiniMax's net loss widened to USD465 million from USD1.5 million last year from the previous year, while its revenue surged 782 percent to USD30.5 million, the prospectus showed. It has accumulated losses of USD1.3 billion over the past four years. 

For the first nine months of last year, its income topped USD53.4 million, with revenue from overseas markets accounting for 73 percent of the total. The Asia-Pacific region made up 34 percent and the Americas 24 percent.

Editor: Martin Kadiev