Enflame Technology shares surged 179% in their Shanghai trading debut on Friday, giving the Tencent-backed artificial intelligence chipmaker a market capitalization of 170.9 billion yuan (US$25.5 billion).
The Shanghai-based company opened at 410 yuan, up from its issue price of 142.18 yuan, and climbed as much as 234% to 475 yuan intraday before closing at 397 yuan.
Enflame’s strong performance stood in contrast to broader market weakness: the Star 50 Index fell 1%, while the benchmark CSI 300 Index dropped 0.8%.
Enflame’s IPO reception and allocation
The company raised about 6.12 billion yuan by selling 43.04 million shares. The offering had valued Enflame at about 61 billion yuan before trading began, making it one of mainland China’s largest tech listings this year.
Demand was intense on the retail side: the retail portion of the IPO was oversubscribed by 4,073 times, with roughly 7 million online investors submitting orders for 42.1 billion shares. The allocation rate for individual investors was 0.025%, one of the lowest on the mainland market this year.
Market context and stakeholder gains
Enflame is the last of China’s so-called “four little dragons” in the domestic AI chip sector to go public, alongside peers Moore Threads, Biren Technology and MetaX Integrated Circuits. The strong market response highlights the companies’ roles in Beijing’s push for semiconductor self-sufficiency as the US restricts exports of advanced chips from global leaders such as Nvidia.
Early stakeholders saw significant paper gains: Tencent, Enflame’s largest institutional backer, saw the value of its stake rise about 20% to nearly 35 billion yuan.
