The firm’s listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) raised $138m and delivered a successful exit to a number of the firm’s backers. These included IDG Capital Partners, Fortune Capital and Ping An Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Ping An Insurance.
G-bits, which is based in Xiamen in southeast China, was set up in 2004 and is best known for massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, such as Underground Castle, Unbelievable Maze, Immortal War and Carefree Online. The company’s most significant breakthrough came in 2006 when China’s Ministry of Culture endorsed AskTao, an MMO role-playing game based on the ancient religion of Taoism, as the country’s “green online game for teenagers” – thereby providing a huge publicity boost.
The January flotation valued G-bits at just under $800m, with shares initially priced on the SSE at the equivalent of $8. In the months that followed, the…
