Mobvoi Inc (羽扇智信息), a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company and smart device maker, has selected banks for a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) that could raise about US$200 million to US$300 million, people familiar with the matter said.
The Beijing-based firm, which last month debuted its own AI large-language model, is working with China International Capital Corp (中國國際金融) and China Merchants Bank International (招銀國際) to prepare for the first-time share sale, the people said.
The IPO could take place as soon as this year, they said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.
With the early success of OpenAI Inc’s ubiquitous chatbot, AI companies in China are rushing to roll out their own answers to ChatGPT and seeking more funding to fuel the sector’s growth.
Beijing’s top Internet overseer has published draft guidelines that would mandate a security review of generative AI services such as Mobvoi’s Xulie Houzi (序列猴子) platform, as well as models from Baidu Inc (百度) and SenseTime Group Inc (商湯科技).
Founded in 2012 by a group of former employees of Alphabet Inc’s Google, Mobvoi three years later attracted the US tech giant’s first direct investment in China since it withdrew its search engine from the country in 2010.
Mobvoi is known to consumers as a maker of products including smartwatches and smart speakers.The company’s AI software is used in services including finance, telecommunications and senior care.
Along with a strategic partnership with Alphabet, Mobvoi also drew Volkswagen AG as an investor and partner via a 2017 funding round and the forming of a joint venture. It also counts Sequoia Capital (紅杉資本) and Zhenfund (真格基金) as backers.
Mobvoi has about 700 employees, and has offices in Seattle and Taipei, in addition to its headquarters in Beijing, its Web site shows.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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