Soul Announces the Suspension of Its US IPO, Saying the Possibility of Other Capital Operations
Soul, a social platform, issued a statement this afternoon saying they have received the possibility of other capital operations, and announced the suspension of its US IPO. Tencent, the majority shareholder, also supports the decision. The company is currently in normal operation.
Soul is popular with Gen-Z. According to the platform’s own statistics, as of March 2021, 73.9% of its DAUs were born in 1990 or later. As an application focused on social interaction between strangers, Soul uses the “looking for similar souls” as marketing tagline, introducing a plethora of services such as soul lens, karaoke, games, soul pet, etc. It is the second social platform focused on interactions between strangers to file a listing on the U.S. stock market after MOMO.
On May 11th, Soul submitted a prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), applying for listing on NASDAQ, with the stock trading code SSR. Morgan Stanley, Jefferies, Bank of America Securities and CICC are among its underwriters. According to the prospectus, in 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, Soul’s revenue reached 498 million yuan and 238 million yuan respectively, up 604.33% and 259.83% year-on-year.
On June 18th, Soul submitted an updated IPO application document to the SEC, setting the issue price range between US $13 and US $15 per American depositary share. The company will raise up to US $227.7 million. At the same time, Soul included a 58-page risk warning in the document, covering business operations, equity structure, legal compliance and stock prices.
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As a social platform for interaction and connection between strangers, Soul has been asked by the Personal Information Protection Working Group to rectify data privacy measures due to defects in data privacy measures. Soul was also given administrative penalties for allowing minors to use its products.
