The Chinese generative AI company is returning to markets months after its January 2026 Hong Kong listing, following a debut in which its shares surged 109% before later falling after the lock-up expiry.
MiniMax Group plans to raise as much as HK$14.54 billion, or roughly $2 billion, through a mix of new share sales and convertible bonds, marking a fresh financing push only months after its Hong Kong listing. The Shanghai-based generative AI company's bond tranche totals HK$6.5 billion with a 2.75% coupon and a conversion price of HK$335 per share, a 25% premium to the HK$268 reference price, while the balance would come from equity issuance. Founded in 2021, MiniMax has been backed by Alibaba and Tencent and saw its private valuation rise from $2.5 billion after a $600 million March 2024 funding round led by Alibaba to $4 billion after a roughly $300 million extension in July 2025. It priced its Hong Kong IPO at HK$165 per share on January 8-9, 2026, selling 29.2 million shares to raise HK$4.82 billion, or about $619 million, before the stock jumped 109% on debut to close at HK$345. After the lock-up period expired, the shares fell roughly 18%, with trading volume reaching HK$6.84 billion and the stock closing at HK$297.4. The fundraising underscores how expensive large language models and multimodal AI systems have become to build, especially as U.S. chip export restrictions make advanced semiconductors harder and costlier for Chinese AI companies to obtain.