China’s Social Network, Kaixin Gearing Up for U.S. IPO

According to The Wall Street Journal, Chinese social networking giant Kaixin001.net is planning a U.S. initial public offering, and has brought on underwriters JP Morgan and Citigroup as The Financial Times reported last month. The WSJ report cites ‘people familiar with the situation’ as its source.

Launched back in 2008, Kaixin is very much like a Chinese version of Facebook, with ‘friending,’ status updates, games, and photo posting features. For a quick walk-though of the interface, jump to the bottom for a screencast I made of Kaixin a few months after it began. Note that the interface has changed a little since then, but it’s still pretty much the same product.

Renren, China’s other Facebook-ish network, is thought to be also getting ready for a US IPO as we reported here earlier this year. In contrast with Kaixin, Renren caters mostly to college students. It was formerly called Xiaonei and borrowed heavily from Facebook’s design early on.

News of Kaixin’s plans comes hot on the heels of Qihoo’s IPO, a Chinese security software maker which went public at the end of March. Qihoo’s shares shot up high on the first day of trading, so it will be interesting to see if Kaixin will be as fortuitious.