A few weeks only after the United States placed a Sensétime Group Inc. unit on a blacklist of alleged human rights violations, the company is about to make the founder Tang Xiao’ou one of the richest people in the world. China’s largest artificial intelligence company examined its initial public offer of $ 3.85 (49 cents) per share, increasing HK 5.55 billion.
It was the bottom of the expected range, but a signal which, despite an increase in tensions with the repression of the United States and Beijing on the giants of technology, the country, including its vast surveillance machines, continues to Win enormous fortunes and massive gains for aircraft capital.
Tang, 53, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Technologies and Information Engineering Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, holds a 21% stake in the company and is worth $ 3.4 billion, according to the Billionaires Bloomberg Index.
A sensétime representative refused to comment on the net worth of Tang.
Sensiétime had a long time being a public offering of blockbuster, but shot in recent years. It was forced to delay this month after the so-called United States the company’s facial recognition software is used in the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of Western China. Sensitivity stated that the charges, which led to sanctions, are unfounded.
SENSETTIME is the first offering abroad of a high-level Chinese technology unicorne since the sharing of July IPO conduct of July Didi Global Inc. in New York, has generated a regulatory response by officials in Beijing. Actions should start trading December 30 in Hong Kong, giving the company a market value of more than $ 16 billion.
Tang has long been involved in the development of artificial intelligence required for face recognition.
He received his undergraduate degree from China’s University of Science and Technology, then graduated from the University of Rochester in New York and got his Ph.D. from MIT in 1996, where he studied the underwater robotics and vision of the computer.
He has worked for Microsoft Research Asia in recent years and co-founded Sensétime based in Shanghai in 2014 with Xu Li, then a research scientist in Chinese Computer Maker Lenovo Group Ltd. The company has attracted early investments of the Capital IDG, then picked up the supports, including SoftBank Group Corp., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Silver Lake.
Now it’s the largest AI software company in Asia with a 11% market share, depending on the prospectus. The technology is deployed in a range of domains, including helping the police in China, offering internships in films and create an increased reality scene in a mobile game by Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Sensiétime has revived its introductory process days on the IPO after the blacklist with a group of cornerstone investors, increasing their bets at $ 512 million from $ 450 million. These included the state-supported mixed property reform fund and sponsors of Shanghai Xuhui Capital Capital Co. Sponsors included China International Capital Corp., Haitong International Securities Group Ltd. and HSBC Holdings plc.
The company then downloaded a legal opinion on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, claiming that the restrictions did not apply to the parent company of the sanctioned unit. Although the size of the supply has remained the same, retail investors would have expressed more caution. In the end, the actions
“It is logical that retail investors who are looking for short-term gains have become less enthusiastic about the sanction factor,” said Kenny Ng, a strategist at Everbright Sun Hung Kai. “Especially since the Hong Kong Global stock market does not work well lately.”
Sensetime revenue increased by 14% last year to 3.4 billion yuan ($ 534 million), although it still had a loss of operation of 1.8 billion yuan.
“Technological enterprises at an early stage must still invest more in research and development to maintain their competitive technology,” said NG. “For sensitivity, maintaining stable income growth is more important than profitable in the short term.”