According to Chinese media outlets, ‘Bitmain’, a Chinese bitcoin mining company, has currently raised $400 million in their pre-IPO.

The reported figures would place the company’s current valuation at the sum of $12 billion. As reported by China Media Network, the leader of this round is Sequoia Capital. They are a venture capital firm that is important and necessary in the development of cryptocurrency. Media outlets claim that the venture capital firm also made a huge investment in Binance. However, Bitmain is yet to publicly confirm this funding and no official comment has been made.

According to reports, Bitmain also has plans to make an application for IPO in Hong Kong in September. The report said the company wants to go public before the year ends  and with a market capitalization within the range of $30 billion and $40 billion.

A previous report mentioned that the CEO of Bitmain, Jihan Wu, has already started thinking of an IPO in the overseas market. He would like the one that has USD-denominated shares to increase the possibility of early investors cashing out quickly.

The company, founded in 2013, carries out major manufacturing functions. These include designing application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips and manufactures cryptocurrency miners. An estimate highlights that the company controls 80% of the mining rig market.

Bitmain and who else?

It is worthy to add that Bitmain isn’t the first mining rig manufacturer to apply for pre-IPO.  The record shows that Canaan Creative applied to the Hong Kong stock exchange for an initial public offering and Zhejiang Ebang Communication has reportedly begun meeting with advisers on a Hong Kong float.

Media outlets suggest that these actions are an indication that IPOs may be the new method to raise funds while also getting familiar with traditional practices.