Bitmain To Raise $18bn Through IPO, To List In Hang Seng

Bitmain, the largest mining hardware manufacturer, is planning to raise $18 billion through an IPO. This would give a market capitalization of $40 billion to $50 billion to Bitmain.

The stock of the crypto mining giant is planned to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by the end of this year or in early 2019. The networth of the company’s founders would be as much as $30 billion if they continue to retain their 60% holding as announced previously.

Sequoia Capital China arranged the preliminary funding for the company. The investment banker enabled Bitmain to successfully raise $50 million and $400 million in series A and series B funding.

Other investment banking firms involved in the funding process includes San Francisco’s IDG Capital, Singapore’s EDBI and GIC and Menlo Park’s Coatue Management.

While the series A round valued the company at $1 billion, the series B round estimated the company’s net worth to be $12 billion. Nearly 5% of the shares were offloaded in the first two rounds of funding.

In July, Bitmain completed a $1 billion pre-IPO financing process. This stretched the company’s value to $15 billion. Upon successful completion of this IPO, investment bankers are expecting a PE ratio of about 20 for Bitmain in the first year of listing.

Bitmain set a new path in cryptomining with the use of ASIC chips custom built for Bitcoin mining. Bitmain also holds Bitcoin worth $20 billon. The company is on its way to become the largest crypto mining company in the world, with the launch of the IPO.