An online venture set up to help smaller Chinese businesses target international customers has decided to launch its growth efforts from London’s junior stock exchange.
JQW has joined the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and raised £6.7 million through the market admission.
The company currently has 10 million registered users and is reported to be the second most popular business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce site when evaluated using web traffic. Larger offering Alibaba is looking at a listing in New York.
Its services include web design, advertising and marketing services – with 166,000 fee-paying members.
Yongde Cai, chairman of JQW, comments, ‘The Chinese B2B e-commerce industry is rapidly growing, with reports forecasting transaction values on e-commerce platforms to experience double digit growth over the coming years.
‘Against a backdrop of the increasing internet penetration in China and JQW’s already robust operating platform, the board believes this additional funding will benefit the business in expanding our operations and increasing brand awareness.’
More on recent AIM admissions:
- Venture capital-backed Applied Graphene Materials picks AIM
- Charlie Muirhead’s Rightster debuts on AIM
- Reverse takeover for AIM-listed Trakm8
The money JQW has raised through the admission will be used to build its platform offering as well as upgrading its hardware and servers and developing a mobile platform for iOS and Android.
By raising £6.7 million, JQW has achieved a market capitalisation of £135 million and sits alongside sports clothing manufacturer Naibu and children’s educational activity packages business LYZE as Chinese AIM companies.
Research compiled at the beginning of 2013 showed that the total number of Chinese AIM-listed companies increased to 48 at the end of 2012. The 48 firms were reported to have an aggregated market capitalisation of £2.76 billion, with an average of £57.5 million – higher than the AIM average of £25 million.
