Beijing (PingWest)—The Tencent-backed game streaming platform, Douyu, officially submitted a prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and filed for an IPO under the stock symbol "DOYU" on Monday, with plans to raise up to $500 million.

In 2018, the operating income of Douyu was about $530 million (3.654 billion RMB) and the net loss was $127 million (876 million RMB), the prospectus said, the company has signed an exclusive live broadcast contract with 50 of the domestic TOP100 game anchors. 

Thanks to the continued rapid growth of active users and paying users, as well as the enhancement of user contribution, ad income, game distribution and other monetization channels, Douyu's annual revenue approximately doubled to $540 million (3.654 billion RMB) in 2018. 

In the fourth quarter of 2018, the average monthly active users (MAU) of Douyu reached 153.5 million, an increase of 14.3% year-on-year. Later, in the first quarter of 2019, the MAUso further increased to 159 million. The prospectus mentioned that the largest game streaming market is here in China, with nearly 4.9 times the monthly active users of the U.S. market in 2018. 

According to the prospectus, around 40% of the shares were held by Tencent, one of the largest video game developer in China.  The video game giant became a shareholder of Douyu in 2016. Since then, it kept on investing in the game streaming platform. The equity investment in the B round, C round and E round have never been missed by the gaming giant.

Huya, another live streaming website backed by Tencent, went public last year in New York, raising $180 million in IPO.

Source: iresearch