Alibaba-backed AI Speech moves forward with Star Market listing plan, aiming to raise US$1.5 billion in Shanghai IPO
- AI Speech, a speech recognition and AI chip company, enters into the Q&A portion of the Shanghai bourse listing application it filed in July
- The company is in the early stage of a vetting process that typically takes over a year
The company aims to raise 10.3 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) from an eventual initial public offering (IPO), it said in a filing submitted in July. Its target is not far from the biggest IPO on the Star board this year; chipmaker Hygon Information Tech raised US$1.6 billion earlier this month.
AI Speech plans to issue new shares equivalent to no less than 10 per cent of its enlarged issued share capital, according to a heavily redacted draft prospectus. Other terms of the proposed offering are not available. The company said it would invest the net proceeds from the listing in internet-of-things (IoT) technology and its dialogue user interface (DUI), its core technology.
After answering queries from the Shanghai bourse operator, AI Speech still needs to jump through several more hoops, the next one being vetting by the exchange’s listing committee.
Two University of Cambridge graduates founded AI Speech in 2007. Its chief executive, Gao Shixing, is a graduate in computer science there. Co-founder and chief scientist Yu Kai also serves as a professor in the computer science and engineering department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
