The least-valued of 'China's CV Four Dragons' now is ready to go public.
As disclosed by China Securities Regulatory Commission Guangdong Bureau on August 19, CloudWalk registered its initial public offering submission and China Securities will be the investment bank leading the trial period.
CloudWalk raised over CNY 5.5 billion (USD 794 million) in the past five years. Being one of the ‘China’s Computer Vision (CV) Four Dragons,’ CloudWalk is the second most-valued among SenseTime, Yitu and Megvii, which are valued at USD 6.0 billion, USD 3.5 billion and USD 4.1 billion accordingly.
With such a high valuation, SenseTime had been rumored to be seeking an IPO on the Hong Kong market early this year, but reluctantly plans to seek USD 50 to 100 million from the private market; Megvii let its Hong Kong IPO case expire and left a loss-making financial record for the public to have a glance on how an AI unicorn makes, or say 'burns,' money; Yitu closed a USD 30 million strategic investment in April, only 1/6 of its last round in 2018.
CloudWalk has been keeping a low profile comparatively and outperformed its peers when the AI investment heat cooled off in the past year. The company completed the Pre-IPO financing series of CNY 1.8 billion (USD 668 million) in May. While AI startups are struggling for survival in the cold spring, CloudWalk is backed by generous state-backed investors and now is ready to debut on the public market.