Kuaishou IPO: how newest millennial billionaires built the biggest rival to China’s TikTok
- Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao will see their net worth jump above US$7 billion and US$6 billion, respectively, following Kuaishou’s IPO
- Both founders come from humble beginnings with big ambitions, but Kuaishou lacks the global appeal of ByteDance’s TikTok
Kuaishou co-founders Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao are set to become two of China’s richest millennials following a US$5 billion initial public offering of their video-sharing app in Hong Kong, joining the ranks of young entrepreneurs who have gained massive wealth from China’s decades-long technology boom.
The total valuation of Kuaishou, China’s second-biggest short video platform next to TikTok sister app Douyin, could reach US$61.7 billion after the IPO, which started to receive public subscriptions on Tuesday. This would push 39-year-old Su’s wealth up to US$7.8 billion on the back of his 12.6 per cent equity stake in the company. Cheng, born in 1985, would be worth US$6.2 billion with his 10 per cent stake.
With their new-found wealth, the Kuaishou co-founders will rank just behind fellow young billionaires Colin Huang Zheng of Pinduoduo, Wang Xing of Meituan and Zhang Yiming of ByteDance, according to the estimates by the South China Morning Post.
Cheng created Kuaishou in 2011 as a tool to create and share animated pictures, before moving into video to help “ordinary people” express themselves online.
Cheng was raised in Tieling, in China’s northeastern rust-belt province of Liaoning, according to Chinese media. Accounts from people who knew him paint Cheng as a programming geek who liked to focus on products and technology. Fisher Zhang Fei, an early investor in Kuaishou, said in the book The Power to be Seen: What is Kuaishou, that Cheng was not good at communicating with others in the real world and that he preferred the virtual world.