Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up MiniMax, which counts Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings as investors, is moving towards an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong as early as this year, according to media reports.
Shanghai-based MiniMax, whose last funding round in March 2024 valued the company at US$2.5 billion, was in the “early stage” of preparations for the listing, according to a Wednesday report by Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper, citing unnamed sources close to the company.
The start-up, which is aiming for a listing in Hong Kong as soon as this year, has hired financial advisers, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
MiniMax did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
The start-up, founded in 2021, has been called one of the “four new AI tigers of China” – along with Baichuan, Zhipu AI and Moonshot AI – amid the race to compete with San Francisco-based OpenAI and other Western AI giants. However, the AI tigers have since been overshadowed by domestic rival DeepSeek, which drew global attention in January with its low-cost, high-performance large language models (LLMs).