China’s biggest online video firm, Youku.com, is seeking a US IPO, reportedly aiming to raise as much as $150 million.
It filed documents with the US SEC on Monday, a month after rival Tudou also applied for a listing.
It has appointed Goldman Sachs as underwriter, with Allen & Co., Piper Jaffray Cos. and Pacific Crest Securities also working on the listing. It did not cite a target price, but Bloomberg reported it was expecting up $150 million from the debut.
Citing data from iResearch, Youku said it had 203 million monthly unique visitors from homes and offices in September, and approximately 61 million visitors from web cafes in August.
It claims 40% of the market in terms of user time viewing online videos during the second quarter of 2010.
Youku is not primarily a user-generated video site like YouTube but is more like Hulu, the site that shows popular US TV programs. About 70% of Youku’s content professionally produced and most of its viewing is of long-form video, CEO Victor Koo told Bloomberg.
It posted a loss of 167 million yuan on sales of 235 million yuan in the first nine months of 2010. in the same period last it recorded a deficit of 136 million on revenue of 99.8 million yuan.
China’s online video market grew at CAGR of 74% from in the three years from 2006 and was last year worth $413 million, according to iResearch.
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