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Xiaomi-Backed Home Appliances Supplier Viomi Files for U.S. IPO

Xiaomi-Backed Home Appliances Supplier Viomi Files for U.S. IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Viomi Technology Co., a provider of internet-connected home appliances to Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp., filed for a U.S. initial public offering.

The four-year-old company in a regulatory filing Tuesday listed the offering size as $150 million, a placeholder amount that could change. The company planned to seek $200 million in a listing, people familiar with the matter previously said.

Xiaomi, which raised $5.4 billion including the overallotment to underwriters in its Hong Kong IPO in June, is Viomi’s strategic partner, shareholder and "most important customer," according to the filing. Viomi, based in the southern Chinese city of Foshan, also counts Sequoia Capital among its investors. The firm completed a series A funding round in 2015 from investors including Xiaomi.

Viomi’s dishwashers, air and water purifiers can be controlled via the company’s mobile app. Its smart refrigerator has a speech recognition function that understands commands such as resetting the temperature, picking up phone calls, playing music and requests for recipe recommendations.

In 2017, Viomi had net income of $14 million on net revenue of about $132 million, the company said. It plans to use proceeds for research and development, selling and marketing initiatives, potential strategic investments and acquisitions and for general corporate purposes.

The offering is being led by Morgan Stanley and China International Capital Corp., according to the filing. The company intends to apply to list its American depositary shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol VIOT.

--With assistance from Crystal Tse.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Barinka in San Francisco at abarinka2@bloomberg.net;Michael Hytha in San Francisco at mhytha@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Matthew Monks

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