By Jiahui Huang
Shares of Black Sesame International fell sharply in their trading debut in Hong Kong after the Chinese maker of chips designed for autonomous driving priced shares at the low end of its marketed range.
The Xiaomi-backed company's shares fell to 21.05 Hong Kong dollars by midday Thursday, 25% off their HK$28.00 initial public offering price. Shares had been marketed at a range of up to HK$30.30.
Black Sesame, based in Wuhan, China, raised net proceeds equivalent to about US$121.9 million in the offering, with cornerstone investment from Guangzhou Automobile Group unit Gardex Development and a unit of Shanghai-listed Ningbo Joyson Electronic.
The chip maker plans to use part of the proceeds to develop its system-on-a-chip technology, or SoC, a type of advanced semiconductor that can incorporate a variety of electronic components such as central processing units, modems and artificial-intelligence accelerators. The company's flagship Huashan Series SoC chips, designed for use in autonomous-driving systems, started mass production in 2022.
Black Sesame raised US$696 million in 10 rounds of fundraising from investors including Xiaomi, Tencent, Geely Automobile and SAIC Motor ahead of its IPO, according to a filing to the Hong Kong exchange.
The company, founded in 2016, has worked on autonomous-driving efforts with companies including Baidu, state-owned FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor and JAC Motors, as well as GAC's EV unit Hycan, Bosch and Geely-backed Ecarx Technology, among others, it said in IPO documents. Its revenue last year nearly doubled to about 312.4 million yuan (US$43.5 million), while net loss widened to 4.86 billion yuan.
Black Sesame ranked among the top five companies in terms of revenue from autonomous driving chips and technology in China last year, with 2.2% market share, its prospectus showed, citing data from research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. The two top-ranking companies had market shares of 27.5% and 23.7%, respectively, the data showed.
Several Chinese autonomous driving companies have moved to go public this year. WeRide filed for a Nasdaq IPO last month, while Pony.ai gained Chinese approval in April to list in the U.S.
Write to Jiahui Huang at jiahui.huang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 08, 2024 01:31 ET (05:31 GMT)
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