HONG KONG: China’s artificial intelligence startup SenseTime Group has identified the mainland’s tightening technology regulatory regime as a key risk for investors in its proposed Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO), according to its filings. SenseTime, which is also blacklisted in the United States, lodged its preliminary filings with the Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing Ltd, operator of the city’s stock exchange. In the filings, SenseTime said China’s changing regulations, especially towards sensitive data handling, could impact its business but it was unable to quantify the effects of the new rules. SenseTime was among eight Chinese tech companies placed on the US Entity List in 2019 amid trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. SenseTime has not identified when it will list but applications to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange typically take three to four months from its first filings.
