Chinese facial recognition unicorn Megvii prepares China IPO

NelsonG · January 13, 2021

Megvii, one of China’s largest facial recognition startups, is gearing up for an initial public offering in Shanghai. The company is working with CITIC Securities to prepare for its planned listing, according to an announcement posted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Tuesday.

The move came more than a year after Megvii, known for its computer vision platform Face++, filed to go public in Hong Kong in August 2019. At the time, Reuters reported that the company could raise between $500 million and $1 billion. However, the firm’s IPO application in Hong Kong has lapsed for undisclosed reasons and its focus is now on Shanghai’s STAR board, a person with knowledge of the matter told TechCrunch.

In 2019, China established the STAR board to attract high-growth, unprofitable Chinese tech startups after losing them to the U.S. for years. In the meantime, a domestic flotation is increasingly appealing to Chinese firms, especially those that count on government contracts and are caught in the U.S.-China tech competition.

Megvii and its rivals SenseTime, Yitu, and CloudWalk are collectively recognized as the “Four AI Dragons” of China for their market dominance and fundings from highflying investors. Megvii’s technology can be found powering smart city infrastructure across China as well as many smartphones and mobile apps. Alibaba, Ant Group and the Bank of China are among the group of investors who have pumped about $1.4 billion into the ten-year-old company since its inception.

The AI Dragons are less celebrated outside their home market. Last year, Megvii, Yitu and SenseTime were added to the U.S. Entity List for their alleged roles in enabling the government’s mass surveillance of the Muslim minority groups in western China. CloudWalk was subsequently added to the blacklist in 2020 and cut off from its U.S. suppliers.

According to the notice posted by China’s securities authority, Megvii plans to issue Chinese depositary receipts (CDRs), which are similar to American depositary receipts and allow domestic investors to hold overseas shares. That suggests the Beijing-based AI unicorn has not ruled out listing outside mainland China.

This week, Hong Kong-listed Lenovo, one of the world’s top PC makers, has also announced plans to sell shares through CDRs on the Shanghai tech board.

Currently seeking guidance in the pre-application stage, Megvii’s planned listing still needs approval from Chinese regulators.