Chinese LGBTQ platform BlueCity surges 46.44% on first day of trading

Chinese online LGBTQ platform BlueCity Holdings Ltd's stocks skyrocketed on its first day of trading Wednesday, a bullish start for a public company on Wall Street.

At the closing bell on the Nasdaq, BlueCity's share price rose dramatically Wednesday, rising by 46.44 percent to $23.43, giving the company a market cap value of $835 million.

Trading under the ticker symbol BLCT, the company priced its IPO $16 per American depositary share to raise $84.8 million. The company said in an earlier statement that it would price shares in the range of $15 to $17 per ADS.

BlueCity said its proceeds from the offering will be used for business expansion, development of new technologies, investment in artificial intelligence and big data as well as working capital needs and potential strategic acquisitions, investment and alliances

Ma Baoli, founder, chairman and CEO of BlueCity, said he took a rosy view of the company's future development, expecting to see better corporate governance and commercialization efficiency in the future.

"We aim to provide LGBTQ groups with full-lifecycle services ranging from social networking services to health services," Ma said. "We firmly believe that everyone is equally entitled to high-quality, tailored services and will diversify our offerings."

BlueCity reported its total revenues increased by 51.4 percent to 758.9 million yuan ($108 million) in 2019 from 501.3 million yuan in 2018. And its net loss decreased by 63.4 percent to 52.9 million yuan in 2019 from 144.6 million yuanin 2018.

Currently, the company makes a significant majority of revenues from livestreaming services. In 2019, it generated 671.4 million yuan of revenues from livestreaming, representing 88.5 percent of total revenues. Other sources include membership, advertising, health-related and family planning services.

Blued claimed it had more than 49 million registered users and 6 million average monthly active users by the end of first quarter this year, covering over 210 countries and regions in the globe.

A Frost & Sullivan Report said Blued is a world's leading LGBTQ platform in terms of average MAUs in 2019, and it is the largest online LGBTQ community in India, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in terms of average MAUs in 2019.