July 6, 2023 - Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Beijing Fourth Paradigm Technology has secured regulatory clearance for a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO), reported Reuters.
As per the filing made earlier this week on the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the company has successfully finished the offshore listing filing procedure.
The clearance comes at a time when, according to sources, regulatory scrutiny of IPOs has increased as a result of new listing norms, delaying the approval process.
The new rules, which were put in place after a regulatory crackdown on offshore listings, became effective on 31 March.
In April, Fourth Paradigm, also known as 4Paradigm, submitted its fourth IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Set up in 2014, the company says its enterprise AI solutions have been used in a variety of sectors such as finance, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, energy and power, telecommunication, healthcare and others.
Fourth Paradigm raised $700m ($HK5474m) in a Series D funding round in January 2021.
It counts China-UAE Joint Investment Fund, CPE, FountainVest Partners, Goldman Sachs, Haitong Securities, Jinyi Capital, Mubadala Investment Company, and Sequoia Capital, as its backers.
This year, the business was added to the “Entity List” in the US, making it illegal for US suppliers to provide it with their technology unless they secure a licence from the Commerce Department.
Recently, it was reported that the US authorities are preparing to restrict Chinese companies’ access to US cloud-computing services.
