Canaan Creative has submitted its IPO prospectus to the US SEC

Canaan Creative, maker of the Avalon Bitcoin miner and one of the world’s largest mining equipment manufacturers, has just formally launched another public sale attempt — this time in the United States.

The IPO prospectus submitted by Canaan Creative to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on October 28 showed that the company intends to list on the Nasdaq with the stock code CAN and set a fundraising amount of US$400 million. The final fundraising amount, valuation and issue price per share are still unknown.

The Hangzhou, China-based bitcoin mining machine maker lost $45.8 million on net income of $42.1 million in the six months ended June 30, 2019, compared with net income of $1.947 billion and a profit of $178.9 million in the first half of 2018, the filing showed.

Canaan said it had net income of $8.3 million for all of 2018 and net revenue of $394 million as the price of bitcoin plummeted from over $6,000 to around $3,000 in the second half of 2018, rendering many bitcoin miners unprofitable.

The filing marks Canaan’s third attempt at a listing, after its first and second attempts in mainland China and Hong Kong, respectively, failed due to market uncertainties.

Chinese media this month pegged Canaan’s valuation at between $2 billion and $3 billion, with 126 million shares to be issued.

Earlier this year, the company began considering another attempt in mainland China or the United States, and reportedly filed a confidential draft prospectus with the SEC in July. But a formal F-1 form was not released until today.

Bitcoin’s price surge this year has caused demand for bitcoin mining equipment to outstrip supply from several major miner manufacturers, leading to a sales surge for leading manufacturers such as Bitmain, Canaan and MicroBT. For example, MicroBT, the maker of WhatsMiner, expects revenue to reach $400 million in the third quarter of 2019 alone.

On the other hand, Bitmain also reportedly attempted to go public in the United States after its failed IPO in Hong Kong as local exchanges and regulators remain uncertain about its sustainability.

View Canaan's prospectus (F-1 document)