Chinese LLM Unicorn MiniMax Stock Falls Below IPO Price
Chinese large language model company MiniMax saw its stock price drop below its IPO issuance price of 165 HKD, hitting 159.3 HKD during trading and erasing all gains from its listing earlier this year. This downturn highlights the growing market skepticism, intense price wars, and profitability challenges facing generative AI startups as investors reevaluate hyper-growth valuations. Despite reporting 2026 first-half revenue of $117 million up 283.1%, MiniMax recorded an expanded net loss of $293 million alongside lukewarm market reception for its latest October model release.
## BACKGROUND
MiniMax is a prominent Chinese artificial intelligence company known for developing multimodal AI models and consumer applications like Talkie and Hailuo AI. Founded just four years ago, it made history by achieving the fastest IPO among AI enterprises before facing intensifying competition from rivals like DeepSeek.