GIC and Baillie Gifford are among the investors buying shares in MiniMax Group’s $619m initial public offering in Hong Kong, as global institutions seek exposure to China’s fast-growing artificial intelligence sector, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.

The IPO, which raised HK$4.8bn, was priced at the top of its marketed range and attracted more than 460 institutional bids, according to people familiar with the transaction. Demand from institutions exceeded available shares by more than 70 times, excluding cornerstone allocations.

Sovereign wealth funds and long-only asset managers took up the majority of shares available to institutional investors. Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management and Schroders were also among the buyers, the sources said.

MiniMax is one of China’s largest generative AI startups and is widely viewed as a domestic challenger to US players such as OpenAI and Anthropic. The company’s shares jumped as much as 22% in grey-market trading ahead of their debut.

The listing forms part of a broader wave of blockbuster AI IPOs in Hong Kong and mainland China, as investors assess whether Chinese developers can scale competitive models with significantly lower capital intensity than their US counterparts.

For private equity and growth investors, the MiniMax offering provides a public-market benchmark for valuing China-based AI platforms at a time when late-stage private valuations remain elevated globally.

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