Chinese fintech firm OneConnect on Wednesday filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Backed by Softbank, OneConnect is the fintech arm of Chinese insurance giant Ping An and is working on blockchain and artificial intelligence.
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Per the filing, the company aims to raise $100 million and, if approved, will list its shares on Nasdaq.
The US filing came amid a failed attempt by the company to publicly list its shares in Hong Kong. As previously reported by Bloomberg, the company was attempting to raise $1 billion in its previous attempt, which would put its valuation at $8 billion.
Founded in 2015, the company is deep-pocketed and has attracted funding of around $650 million to date, according to CrunchBase. It also gained the attention of Japanese giant SoftBank and received funds from its vision fund.
Massive budget for blockchain research
The company is investing significantly in blockchain research and development and has eight dedicated research institutes and 50 technology labs to work on the usage of the nascent technology in the financial industry. It has also pledged to dedicate one percent of its annual revenue for blockchain development.
As mentioned in Ping Ann’s annual report, OneConnect filed the second most number of blockchain patents in China, with the count reaching 274 by the end of the first half of 2019.
OneConnect has worked with more than 200 Chinese banks, 200,000 enterprises, and 500 government and commercial institutions, per the annual report.
The company claims that its FiMAX blockchain technology can handle up to 50,000 transactions per second with a latency of fewer than 0.5 seconds. It also boasts about its zero-knowledge proof algorithm, which guarantees the security of data stored on the blockchain.
Meanwhile, Chinese Bitcoin mining hardware markers are also flocking towards the US market to publicly list their shares. Earlier today, Finance Magnates reported that Canaan Creative is attempting to raise $100 million with a Nasdaq listing.
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