Shares in Kuaishou nearly tripled on their first day of trading in Hong Kong, propelling the valuation of the Chinese viral video app to $160 billion, close to that of ByteDance, the owner of its chief rival TikTok, reported the Financial Times.
The company’s stock gained as much as 194% on Friday after it raised about $5.4 billion in its initial public offering, the biggest in the tech industry since Uber raised more than $8 billion in 2019. They closed about 160% higher.
ByteDance last raised money at a $180 billion valuation, and is also considering a Hong Kong listing this year for some of its China businesses, according to FT sources close to the company.
“For a sizeable IPO like this one I can’t recall any . . . reaching this sort of extraordinary performance” on day one, said Ronald Wan, chief executive and founder of Hong Kong investment firm Partners Capital.