AI Firm CloudWalk to Be Listed at End of May

Sina Tech reported on Monday that CloudWalk, an artificial intelligence enterprise, will be listed on the Shanghai Sci-Tech Innovation Board (STAR Market) at the end of May, possibly between May 25 and May 30.

Founded in 2015, CloudWalk aims to provide efficient man-machine collaborative operating systems and industry solutions. The company boasts technical expertise in the fields of perception and cognition such as face recognition, cross-border tracking, speech recognition and natural language processing.

According to the announcement issued by CloudWalk, 112.43 million new shares are planned to be issued, accounting for 15.18% of the total shares. The issuance will be carried out in several ways including directional placement to strategic investors and both offline and offline issuance to qualified investors. China Securities is the sponsor of this issuance.

CloudWalk plans to raise 3.75 billion yuan ($552 million), among which 813 million yuan will be used for a man-machine collaborative operating system upgrade project, 831 million yuan for the company’s Qingzhou KaaS Cloud Ecosystem, 1.412 billion yuan for artificial intelligence solutiona, and 693 million yuan is marked to be used as supplementary working capital.

In each of the years from 2019 to 2021, CloudWalk’s operating income reached 807 million yuan, 754 million yuan and 1.07 billion yuan respectively, while its net profit was -692 million yuan, -843 million yuan and -664 million yuan.

The main reason for the imbalance is that CloudWalk’s R&D division accounts for almost three quarters of the company’s revenue. From 2019 to 2021, the company’s  R&D expenses totaled 454 million yuan, 578 million yuan and 534 million yuan respectively.

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According to preliminary calculations made by the company, its estimated operating income from January to March 2022 should be between 177 million yuan to 200 million yuan, while the estimated net profit attributable to the parent company will range from -117 million yuan to -100 million yuan. CloudWalk said that it expects to achieve profitability by 2025.