Megvii, whose facial recognition technologies have been used in smartphones made by Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, has filed for an initial public offering in Hong Kong, indicating plans to be listed under a dual class share structure.
This comes after the company closed its Series D financing round in May, collecting USD 750 million from investors including Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, as well as Macquarie Group.
The timetable for the IPO, the total amount of funds expected to be raised, and pricing for the shares have not been disclosed yet.
The company, which was founded in 2011, made RMB 949 million (USD 133 million) in total revenue in the first six months of this year, compared to RMB 305.8 million in the same period in 2018, according to the company’s prospectus. It booked RMB 5.2 billion in net losses in the first half of 2019, widening from RMB 728.9 million in the same period last year.
Megvii claims that it accounted for more than 60% of China’s cloud-based facial recognition market by revenue in 2018, citing data of market research firm China Insights Consultancy.