Chinese live streaming platform Douyu International Holdings Limited have officially filed an initial public offering on the U.S. stock market.
According to the prospectus filed with US Securities and Exchange Commission, Douyu plans to raise $500 million (£386m) and applied to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the stock symbol “DOYU”. Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are underwriters of this IPO
The amount is close to the company’s 2018 revenue of ¥3.65 billion ($531.5M) which was a 93.8% increase from their 2017 turnover. Proceeds from the listing will be used for content production, R&D and marketing to attract more users to the platform.
Credit: Fabio Formaggio and 123rf.com
This isn’t the first time that they have looked to be listed on the U.S stock market, as last year they considered entering the New York Stock Exchange by raising $600m; however, they later refuted those claims.
No stock pricing has been filed yet. Douyu’s streaming rivals in China, Huya, did have a $12 (£9.27) issue price on the NYSE before it peaked at $46.20 (£35.69) last June.
Douyu is one of China’s largest live streaming platforms and is backed by Tencent who are also a shareholder in Huya. The filing revealed that their registered users almost tripled from 98.7m in 2016 to 253m in 2018. In the first quarter of 2019, monthly active users reached 159m an increase of 25.7 from the same time in 2018.
Esports Insider says: We have seen both Huya and Douyu expand their business to the global esports market. If Douyu is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, there is no doubt that shareholder in both companies, Tencent will be the biggest winner especially after their valuation drop last year.