Wearable fitness company Whoop has secured $575 million in new funding from a mix of investors and high-profile athlete backers, including Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James. The injection of capital broadens the company’s investor base and should accelerate product development and market expansion as whoop competes in the sports-performance and consumer health-tech space.
Tencent-Backed Enflame Prices Shanghai IPO at 142.18 Yuan, Raising $911 Million Add to Google Preferred Sources Shanghai Enflame Technology has priced its STAR Market IPO at 142.18 yuan per share, aiming to raise about 6.12 billion yuan ($911 million) through the sale of roughly 43 million shares. The Tencent-backed AI chip developer is the last of China's four major GPU startups to go public, following Moore Threads, Biren Technology, and MetaX. Tencent owns 20% of the company and accounted for 84% of its 2025 revenue, up from 38% a year earlier. Enflame remains unprofitable, posting a 1.2 billion yuan net loss in 2025, though revenue growth has exceeded 80% annually since 2023. The listing values the company at about 61.8 times 2025 sales, below domestic rivals but well above Nvidia's multiple. Key Elements Enflame Technology Tencent Holdings Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market Moore Threads Biren Technology MetaX Integrated Circuits Nvidia CXMT Shanghai Enflame Technology, a Chinese developer of AI accelerator chips, has locked in the pricing for its initial public offering on the city's STAR Market, paving the way for the last of the country's so-called "four little dragons" of GPU startups to complete a stock-market debut. The company set its offering price at 142.18 yuan per share and will sell roughly 43 million shares, equivalent to 10% of its enlarged share capital after the listing. The sale is expected to raise approximately 6.12 billion yuan ($911 million), according to an exchange filing on Monday. Tencent Holdings (TCEHY) sits at the center of the deal from two directions. The internet and gaming giant owns a 20% stake in Enflame and is simultaneously its largest customer. Revenue from Tencent accounted for 84% of Enflame's total sales in 2025, more than doubling from about 38% the previous year. That concentration is a double-edged sword: it provides a stable commercial anchor for the chipmaker, but also exposes the company to significant customer risk. Tencent's internet and cloud platforms serve as the primary commercial base for Enflame's chips, which are deployed in large-scale data centers to power chatbots, recommendation systems, and generative AI applications. In its prospectus, Enflame said Tencent's demand for AI accelerator cards has "greatly exceeded" the company's supply capacity, adding that it has prioritized its key customer while using large-scale, high-demand deployments to refine its technology. Founded in 2018, Enflame develops AI accelerators for cloud computing and data-center workloads. It follows Moore Threads, Biren Technology, and MetaX Integrated Circuits in going public, completing a group that has drawn intense investor enthusiasm. Moore Threads surged 425% on its first day of trading in December, fueling broader expectations for China's emerging AI chip sector. Despite the momentum, Enflame's valuation at listing stands well below the multiples some of its domestic peers have commanded. The IPO prices the company at roughly 61.8 times its 2025 sales, compared with multiples exceeding 160 for Moore Threads and MetaX. Yet that figure remains far above the 25.4-times benchmark for Nvidia cited in the filing. The market backdrop underscores both the opportunity and the challenge. Nvidia still accounted for about 55% of China's AI accelerator shipments in 2025, reflecting the country's heavy reliance on foreign semiconductor technology. Enflame held an estimated 1.7% share of the market, positioning it among the leading domestic suppliers, according to analysts including Peng Wenyu of Shenwan Hongyuan Research. "China's AI computing demand continues to outpace domestic supply," the analysts wrote, noting that overseas chips remain a dominant force. Enflame has yet to turn a profit, though its losses are narrowing. The company reported a net loss of 1.2 billion yuan in 2025, down from 1.5 billion yuan a year earlier, and expects a loss of about 600 million yuan for the first half of this year. Revenue growth, however, remains robust. First-half sales are projected to more than triple from a year earlier, reaching between 10.6 billion yuan and 11.5 billion yuan. Between 2023 and 2025, revenue expanded at a compound annual growth rate above 80%. Metric 2024 2025 H1 2026 (projected) Net loss 1.5 billion yuan 1.2 billion yuan ~600 million yuan Tencent share of revenue ~38% 84% N/A Revenue N/A N/A 10.6-11.5 billion yuan Note: Figures reflect Enflame's regulatory disclosures and analyst estimates. The listing adds to a widening pipeline of Chinese technology companies tapping public markets amid the country's AI investment boom. While Enflame's IPO is smaller than some of the year's marquee offerings, such as memory-chip maker CXMT's blockbuster debut, it highlights how capital is flowing across the AI ecosystem, from chip designers to hardware manufacturers and model developers. For Tencent, the listing arrives as the company pours resources into AI infrastructure. Its latest quarterly results showed capital expenditure surging 176% year over year to 52.8 billion yuan. Enflame offers a domestic chip alternative at a time when access to advanced foreign hardware is tightening, though the close supplier relationship also concentrates risk on both sides of the equation. Tencent shares fell about 1.9% to $57.29 on Monday as investors weighed the implications of the upcoming debut. Like Favorite Share Add to Google Preferred Sources Once added, BigGo Finance appears first in Google Search Top Stories, so you get the broadest, most up-to-the-minute, and most comprehensive global financial news first. More Related News
Curated by Taleb Kabbara · Source: finance.biggo.com
Whoop
Whoop: Whoop is the company raising $575 million from investors and star athletes, and is the primary subject of the article.
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