Baillie Gifford, GIC reportedly back $619m MiniMax IPO

Baillie Gifford and Singapore’s GIC have bought shares in MiniMax Group’s HK$4.8 billion (US$619 million) IPO in Hong Kong, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.

MiniMax Group is a Chinese generative AI startup.

Other buyers reportedly include Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management and asset manager Schroders.

The IPO was priced at the top of its marketed range and saw institutional investors bid for more than 70 times the available shares, excluding cornerstone investors.

More than 460 institutional bids were received for the offering.

Long-only investors and sovereign wealth funds reportedly took up a majority of the institutional shares, excluding the cornerstone tranche.

MiniMax shares are set to start trading in Hong Kong on January 9.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

MiniMax fundamentals behind heavy oversubscription

Revenue rose from US$3.46 million in 2023 to US$30.52 million in 2024, then hit US$53.44 million in the first nine months of 2025 1. At the top of the range, valuation reaches about US$6.5 billion, and the order book was filled many times over even without cornerstone investors 2.
Models across text, audio, images, video, and music set it apart 1. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called MiniMax a “world-class model builder” 1. The open-sourced MiniMax-M2 ranked top five globally and first among open-source peers per Artificial Analysis, an AI benchmark tracker 3.

AI infrastructure and compliance firms can win Hong Kong IPO work

Six Chinese tech companies will debut in Hong Kong the week of January 6–9, 2026 2. Over 300 companies had filed for Hong Kong listings by late 2025 4.
Cloud vendors, GPU (graphics processing unit) lessors, and data center operators can pitch pre-IPO AI teams now. Shanghai Biren Technology jumped 76% on debut with HK$5.52 billion, which means issuers will spend more post-listing on R&D (research and development) plus commercialization 5. Compliance shops can guide AI issuers through U.S. export controls that limit advanced chips and software 1 5. MiniMax flagged GPU export risks; Biren cited Entity List limits, a U.S. Commerce Department trade blacklist 1 5. Firms focused on Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing’s Technology Enterprises Channel, a listing route tailored for high-growth tech companies, can secure recurring work on monitoring plus mitigation 4.