China’s burgeoning video and live-streaming sector is going to welcome its first IPO wave this year. Just weeks after Kuaishou’s IPO news broke out, Yixia Technology, the Beijing developer behind Chinese top video blogging app Miaopai, is planning a U.S. IPO later this year, our sister site TechNode Chinese is reporting, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Sources tell us the company is going to appoint senior management next month, which they translated as a signal for the listing.
“They [Yixia Technology] are planning to get listed in the second half of this year, very likely in the U.S. market given that Weibo, a major investor of Yixia Technology is listed on NASDAQ,” our source told us.
The company probably will announce the appointment at the end of this month, but nothing will be said about the IPO timetable, the source pointed out. “On the one hand, the board hasn’t reach consensus, on the other hand, they would try to take a gradual step cause things could change for any big deals like this,” according to our source.
In addition, buzz surrounding Yixia Technology’s IPO has been around for some time. Several series C investors of the company, the founder of StarVC as well as Zhou Wei, partner of KPCB, talked about the firm’s IPO plans previously. Local media (in Chinese) reported that the firm has already signed its security underwriter.
Founded in 2011, Yixia Technology is one of the leading video app developers to have ridden China’s video and live-streaming boom. The company first prospered with Miaopai, a leading video clip editing and sharing app which claimed over 1.7 billion daily views as of September last year. The growth has been fueled by its convenient integration into Weibo, the leading Twitter-like social media and strategic investor of Yixia Technology.
But it seems that Weibo’s investment has been paid off even before the Yixia Technology’s listing. Shares of Weibo jumped recently to historical high due in parts to the boost from Yixia.
Video-dubbing app Xiaokaxiu and live streaming platform Yizhibo, two of Yixia Technology’s video platforms, also recorded significant growth during the past year. According to data from the company, Miaopai and Xiaokaxiu have a combined daily user base of 70 million with Yizhibo covering 10 million daily users.
Investors have been enthusiastic about the Beijing-based firm for some time, where it has pocketed nearly US$ 800 million funding in overall six rounds of financing from Weibo, Sequoia Capital and RedPoint Ventures. The company’s most recent 500 million USD round raised the company’s valuation to between US$ 3 billion to 5 billion.
Han Kun, founder and CEO of Yixia Technology, declined to comment on our inquiries on the issue.
To answer previous inquires from local media on IPO plans, Han said: “Not a single startup that aspires for long-term and sustainable growth would forgo their IPO plan. However, going public is a decision that should be made by taking every aspect of the company into consideration. . . I will leave this problem to our CFO and I will focus more on the product itself.”
