Weibo has become the latest Chinese company to tap the US public markets, targeting $500 million from its initial public offering, and plans to leverage its partnership with minority shareholder Alibaba to maxmise advertising revenue.

Sina Weibo, the China-based microblogging website in which China-based e-commerce company Alibaba holds a 19.3% stake, has filed for a US initial public offering that could raise up to $500m.

Owned and operated by Chinese internet company Sina Corporation, Weibo runs an online service similar to Twitter’s, also utilising a 140-character limit and allowing users to re-post or hashtag their messages. Users can also attach images, music or emoticons to their posts. As of the end of 2013, it had…