Chinese Messaging App Momo Raises $216m In IPO, Valued At $3bn

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Shares of Chinese messaging app Momo rose by 26% on its first day of trading, the company raising $216m.

The Alibaba-backed app debuted on the Nasdaq yesterday, and was valued at around $3bn.

Their first day successes come after corruption allegations from a former employer of Momo CEO Tang Yan, who said he had stolen technology from NetEase, and founded Momo while still an employee there.

Momo is a location-based messaging and social platform which has 180.3m registered users, 60.2m active monthly users and 25.5m daily users, according to their filing.

In their prospectus, Momo wrote: “People may not understand the value of our platform, and there may be a misperception that Momo is used solely as a tool to randomly meet or date strangers.”

Momo also recently introduced location-based advertising — and in their filing spoke about the marketing potential for location apps like Momo in China.

The app monetises through a combination of premium subscriptions and selling things like stickers, games and emoticons.

Since they started monetising in July 2013, their revenues have quadrupled to $13.9m in the first half of 2014.

They generated 63% of this revenue from premium subscriptions.