(Jan 9): MiniMax Group Inc, one of China’s largest generative AI start-ups, surged in Hong Kong after an initial public offering that raised US$619 million ($796.4 million).
Shares closed up 109% in Friday trading. The stock was priced at HKD165 (US$21.17) apiece in an upsized offering, with retail investors subscribing to more than 1,830 times the shares available.
Backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, MiniMax is among the first of China’s post-ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence firms to go public. The gains came after rival Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC Ltd, known as Zhipu, delivered a more modest debut in the financial hub on Thursday.
The rally is supported by both short-term speculative buyers as well as longer-term institutional investors, according to Steven Leung, executive director at UOB Kay Hian Hong Kong. There may be some liquidity switching from the US given worries over the AI bubble, he said.
MiniMax’s first-day stock performance suggests investor enthusiasm in China’s AI sector has broadened out beyond hardware makers to software firms. Earlier, localisation demand drove chipmakers Moore Threads Technology Co and MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai Co to surge multifold on their first day of trade in Shanghai. Zhipu, which rose 13% on its first session, added 21% on Friday.
See also: Baillie Gifford, GIC buying shares in MiniMax’s US$619m HK IPO — Bloomberg
“It is still early in the China AI investment cycle compared to global peers, so it may be difficult for investors to identify winners and losers,” said Marvin Chen, analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Performance may begin to become more differentiated as the cycle matures.”
Founded in early 2022, Shanghai–based MiniMax has its roots in gaming. The start-up is trying to one-up DeepSeek and OpenAI with consumer chatbots at home and abroad.
A devotee of the battle-arena game Dota 2, co-founder Yan Junjie first noticed OpenAI in 2019, when its bots defeated the world’s top human players. Captivated, he devoured the lab’s research papers, prompting a career pivot from computer vision to natural language processing. He secured one of his first checks from Genshin Impact studio MiHoYo, whose founders obsess over using AI to revolutionise gaming. MiHoYo remains a key client.
See also: Goldman, UBS working on CK Hutchison's Watson IPO in HK, London — Bloomberg
The IPO prospectus shows the company posted an adjusted loss of about US$186 million in the first nine months of 2025.
MiniMax joins a wave of Chinese AI firms that have rushed to raise funds to accelerate their expansion amid support from Beijing to bolster home-grown champions in the sector. About half of the 11 companies that have laid out plans to list in Hong Kong this month are AI companies. Next week, OmniVision Integrated Circuits Group and GigaDevice Semiconductor Inc will debut in the financial hub.
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