Chinese AI Startups Rush to IPO as MiniMax Shares Double in Hong Kong Debut

MiniMax, a Shanghai-based LLM company and DeepSeek rival, closed 100%+ higher in its Hong Kong trading debut, raising $619 million at $13.5B market cap.

The Chinese AI IPO Wave

A day earlier, Zhipu became the first LLM startup to list globally, raising $558M with shares up 37%. Chinese AI companies are turning to public markets far earlier than US counterparts, which have raised tens of billions privately.

The Structural Difference

Without hyperscaler backing, Chinese startups need public capital to compete:

• US AI startups (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI) raised billions from Microsoft, Google, Amazon
• Chinese startups lack equivalent backers—Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu have their own AI efforts

This creates different business model dynamics:

• Public market accountability from day one vs. extended private runway
• Quarterly earnings pressure vs. multi-year R&D horizons
• Retail investor base vs. patient institutional capital

Winners may emerge faster under public scrutiny—but so will losers. Source: Financial Times