Chinese autonomous driving firm Minieye, backed by Alibaba CEO, files for Hong Kong IPO
- Shenzhen-based Minieye Technology, which has yet to turn a profit, is joining mainland autonomous driving firms like iMotion and Horizon Robotics on the Hong Kong stock exchange
The company had gone through at least 17 rounds of fundraising before submitting its prospectus on May 27. It is looking to raise US$150 million, the International Financial Review reported. The company has not revealed a target valuation, saying only that it has exceeded the HK$4 billion (US$512 million) market capitalisation required at the time of listing.
Wu – a co-founder of Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post – is among the company’s most high-profile backers. He holds a 2.3 per cent stake in the company, after transferring shares valued at 30.6 million (US$4.2 million) yuan in 2019, four years after his 4.5 million yuan angel investment, according to the prospectus.
The start-up’s corporate backers include investment houses such as Beijing Siwei Management, Shenzhen Zeyi, and China International Capital.
Founded in 2014 by entrepreneur Liu Guoqing, who earned a PhD in computer science from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2013, Minieye has supported 29 carmakers with autonomous driving solutions up to Level 2 – meaning the system is able to control steering and acceleration but requires driver monitoring, similar to Tesla’s Autopilot.
Last year, Minieye sold more than 780 million of its intelligent driving solutions.
Company revenue reached 476 million yuan last year, growing at a compounded annual rate of 64.9 per cent over three years. Revenues were 279 million yuan and 175 million yuan in 2022 and 2021, respectively.