Tang Xiao’ou has become one of the richest men in the world to follow a series of anti-tech companies.
A few weeks later, the US formed SenseTime Group Inc. on the list of human rights abusers, the company is about to make the founder Tang Xiao’ou one of the richest people in the world.
China’s largest intelligence company bought its starting price of HK $ 3.85 (49 cents) per share, raising $ 5.55 billion.
This was below expectations, but a sign that despite growing tensions over US and Beijing’s crackdown on technology giants, the country, with its huge management machinery, continues to gain huge wealth and huge capitalist gains.
Tang, 53, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate with a degree in information technology from China University of Hong Kong, owns a 21% stake in the company and is worth $ 3.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
A SenseTime representative declined to comment on the Tang price.
SenseTime is expected to be a public offering but has caught fire in recent years. Registration was forced to delay registration this month after the US claimed that the company’s face recognition program was used to crack down on Uyghur Muslims in the autonomous region of Xinjiang in western China. SenseTime said the allegations, which led to her conviction, were baseless.
SenseTime is the first to be exported to China from China’s top technology since Didi Global Inc. Shares are set to go on sale on December 30 in Hong Kong, giving the company a market value of more than $ 16 billion.
Tang has been instrumental in creating the creative ideas that are needed to make people visible to the public.
He received his master’s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China, then graduated from Rochester University in New York and received his PhD from MIT in 1996, where he studied underwater robotics and computer vision.
He worked for Microsoft Research Asia for a number of years and founded SenseTime in Shanghai in 2014 with Xu Li, a former Chinese computer research scientist Lenovo Group Ltd. SoftBank Group Corp., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Silver Lake.
‘Sanction factor’
It is now the largest AI software company in Asia with an 11% stake in the market, according to expectations. The technology is deployed in a variety of areas, including support for Chinese police, filming and real-time production of mobile games by Tencent Holdings Ltd.
SenseTime re-launched its IPO strategy a few days later a blacklist with a group of fundraisers increasing their betting to $ 512 million from $ 450 million. These include the government-funded Mixed-Ownership Reform Fund and Shanghai Xuhui Capital Investment Co.
The company later filed a lawsuit against the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, stating that the ban did not apply to a licensed company. Although the size was the same, advertisers said they were very careful.
“It is understandable that marketers who are looking for short-term profits are not very happy with the punishment,” said Kenny Ng, a psychologist at Everbright Sun Hung Kai. “Especially since the whole Hong Kong market is not doing well anytime soon.”
SenseTime revenue rose 14% last year to $ 3.4 billion yuan ($ 534 million), although it still sent a loss of 1.8 billion yuan.
“Technology companies still need to invest more in research and development to make their technology more competitive,” said Ng. “For SenseTime, maintaining a steady income is more important than having a short-term profit.”
