AI company MiniMax, supported by MiHoYo, experiences a successful debut in Hong Kong, with its market valuation exceeding $11.5 billion.

      Credit: MiniMax

      MiniMax’s shares, an AI company supported by Chinese game developer MiHoYo, experienced a surge of over 70% during their trading debut in Hong Kong on Thursday, momentarily elevating the company's market capitalization to above HK$90 billion ($11.5 billion). Founded by former SenseTime vice president Yan Junjie, MiniMax was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code 00100.HK. This listing is one of the quickest public offerings by a global AI firm since its establishment.

      Why it matters: This strong market debut highlights significant investor interest in companies creating large language models and general-purpose artificial intelligence, as funding continues to pour into this sector, despite the increasing competition and escalating development costs.

      Details: MiniMax specializes in foundational models and AI applications, attracting investment from backers like MiHoYo, known for the popular game Genshin Impact.

      The company set its initial public offering price at HK$165 per share. If the greenshoe option is fully exercised, MiniMax's global gross proceeds amount to HK$5.54 billion ($710 million).

      Market interest was high, with the public offering in Hong Kong being oversubscribed 1,837 times, and the international placement covered 37 times. The IPO secured 14 cornerstone investors, including Aspex, Eastspring, Mirae Asset, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Alibaba, and E Fund Management, among various domestic and international entities.

      As an angel investor, MiHoYo possesses a 6.4% stake in MiniMax, which is worth over HK$4.8 billion ($615 million) based on current market capitalization. Other investors include Tencent, Alibaba, Sequoia China, Hillhouse Capital, and IDG Capital, as per public disclosures.

      Significantly, ZhenFund took part in six consecutive funding rounds, becoming the most active investor in MiniMax. Founding partner Huang Mingming noted that Yan Junjie’s critical technology decisions provided confidence in his ability to overcome the so-called impossible triangle of high performance, low cost, and commercial viability.

      Despite the impressive market valuation, MiniMax indicated in its prospectus that it is still in a high-investment phase, reporting a net loss of $512 million in the first three quarters of 2025. Founder Yan Junjie stated that the IPO proceeds would mainly support enhancements to large language models and the creation of AI-native products. “We will keep pushing for advancements in intelligence and ensure that cutting-edge AI truly benefits everyone,” he said.

      Context: MiniMax has developed proprietary multimodal foundation models that encompass text, speech, and video. Its abab 6.5 model series employs a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture, achieving performance within 5% of leading U.S. models while incurring about 1% of the costs, according to the company, and has been implemented extensively for commercial applications.

      As of September 2025, MiniMax's services have reached users across more than 200 countries and regions, with over 70% of its revenue generated from international markets. Revenue for the initial three quarters increased by 170% year-on-year, while the gross margin reached 69.4%, as reported by the company.

      Jessie Wu is a technology journalist based in Shanghai, covering consumer electronics, semiconductors, and the gaming industry for TechNode. You can connect with her via email: jessie.wu@technode.com. More articles by Jessie Wu.