Beijing-based Kuaishou, a short video slash live streaming lifestyle app, will soon close a new financing round worth USD 1 billion, according to Caijing. Existing investors Tencent and Sequoia Capital China are said to join the round. The new financing would raise the company’s market capitalization to USD 18 billion.
At the same time, Kuaishou, meaning “fast hand” in Chinese, is reportedly eyeing a Hong Kong IPO in the second half of 2018, as the city’s exchange operator is set to introduce new listing rules for companies with dual-class shares as early as in June, a powerful attraction for tech companies including Kuaishou and Xiaomi.
The video app raised $350 million in a round led by Tencent last March and was valued at USD 3 billion. Thanks to its growing user base, its market value mushroomed 6 times since then. As one of China’s top video live streaming apps, Kuaishou claims to attract over 100 million daily active users who spent at least one hour on average on the app as of November 2017.
The live streaming arena is fiercely competed. Tencent-backed Kuaishou faces competition from Alibaba-affiliated Weibo-backed Miaopai, Toutiao’s array of video apps– Huoshan, Xigua, and Douyin. All are pouring large amount of money in marketing to glue users.
The seven-year-old Kuaishou generates a monthly revenue of as much as RMB 300 million (approx. USD 46.95 million) which helps the company break even. Although the company also make profits from advertisements and games, as a company valued at USD 18 billion, Kuaishou probably needs to enrich its revenue streams to justify the lofty valuation.
