- Chinese livestreaming platform Douyu has filed a preliminary IPO application for listing at the New York Stock Exchange, with plans to raise up to $500M under the stock symbol: DOYU.
- Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America Securities are the underwriters of this U.S. IPO.
- Douyu plans to use the proceeds to further strengthen its position in the esports ecosystem, continue attracting more viewers and streamers while investing in technologies, increase monetization capabilities, and start expansion in selected overseas regions.
On April 22, Chinese livestreaming platform Douyu 
filed a preliminary IPO application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for listing at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) using the stock symbol DOYU. While the amount of American Deposit Shares (ADSs) to be offered as well as the pricing isn’t filed yet, the Chinese news outlet The Beijing News has reported that the company is looking to raise up to $500M USD.
This amount almost equals the company’s 2018 revenue of ¥3.65B RMB ($531.5M). Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America Securities (previously known as Bank of America Merrill Lynch) are the underwriters of this U.S. IPO.
According to the prospectus, Douyu plans to use the proceeds to further strengthen its position in the esports ecosystem, continue attracting more viewers and streamers while investing in technologies, increase monetization capabilities, and start expansion in selected overseas regions.
In its preliminary SEC Form F-1, Douyu states that its 2019 Q1 MAUs were 159.2M who spent approximately 2.3B hours on the platform during that period. Furthermore, Douyu claims to have increased its number of paying users from 3.6M in Q1 of 2018 by 66.7% YoY to 6.0M in Q1 of 2019.
Related Article: Huya Raises $180M in IPO
In March of 2018, Chinese multinational investment holding conglomerate Tencent Holdings
invested $632M in Douyu. In fact, Tencent has become a major shareholder of Douyu since 2016, repeatedly invested in Douyu’s B, C, E investment series round, and owns 40.1% of the current outstanding ordinary shares of Douyu at time of writing via its subsidiary Nectarine Investment.
In addition, as one of the major strategic partners of Douyu, Tencent has supported the streaming platform in gaming content creation, esports tournament organization, and product operations.
It should be noted that this is not the first Chinese livestreaming platform going for a U.S. IPO: In May of 2018, Huya raised $180M in a U.S. IPO and was listed at the NYSE. Huya also has reportedly received $461.6M from Tencent Holdings in investment.
In addition, Tencent has its own livestreaming esports platform called “Penguin e-Sports.” However, livestreaming platforms in China will still face multiple challenges. On March 30, the Chinese livestreaming platform Panda TV closed its website to the public and went into bankruptcy.
Editor’s Note: Tobias Seck contributed to this article.
