Chinese AI startup MiniMax secured Alibaba and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority as cornerstone investors for its Hong Kong IPO, according to Bloomberg reports on December 30. The company aims to raise over $600 million through the offering, with investor subscriptions potentially starting as early as Wednesday for a January listing.
MiniMax will begin taking investor orders this week for the planned January debut, though deal size and timing remain subject to change. Additional cornerstone investors include IDG Capital, Perseverance Asset Management, and South Korea's Mirae Asset Group, creating a diverse international investor base.
The IPO positions MiniMax in a heated race against rival Zhipu AI to become China's first publicly listed generative AI startup. Zhipu AI, officially known as Knowledge Atlas Technology, launched its own $560 million share sale on Tuesday targeting a January 8 debut.
MiniMax generated $30.5 million in revenue last year, a fraction of OpenAI's projected $13 billion for 2025. The company survived China's "Battle of One Hundred Models" price war that saw numerous AI model developers compete in a crowded domestic market.
The startup raised nearly $300 million in a July funding round, following a $600 million round led by Alibaba in March 2024. Last week, MiniMax debuted its M2.1 multi-language AI model featuring enhanced performance for complex tasks and agentic capabilities across programming languages.
Hong Kong is experiencing a year-end IPO rush, with December marking the busiest month for listings since 2019. Twenty-five companies debuted shares this month, setting a four-year high for IPO proceeds in the Asian financial hub.
Global investors continue pouring substantial funds into AI startups despite profitability concerns. In the United States, SoftBank Group completed a $40 billion funding commitment for OpenAI in December 2025, while Meta Platforms acquired Singapore-based AI agent Manus for over $2 billion this week.
MiniMax's multimodal AI models generate text, realistic images, video, and voice while performing image understanding tasks. The company competes with established Chinese tech giants including Baidu and Alibaba, which have released their own frontier-model candidates in recent years.
