Chinese self-driving technology company Momenta plans to raise as much as HK$5.89 billion, or roughly $751 million, through an initial public offering in Hong Kong, according to a filing the company submitted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday. The company said it will sell 19.9 million shares at HK$295.60 each, with the money going toward research, advancing its self-driving systems, and speeding up the rollout of its robotaxi service.
Momenta Global, founded in 2016 and run by chief executive Cao Xudong, a former Microsoft engineer, expects to announce how the shares are divided among investors by July 7, with trading set to begin the following day. The deal is being led by China International Capital Corp. and Deutsche Bank.
The company builds the software and systems that let cars drive themselves, ranging from the assisted-driving features now common in new vehicles to fully driverless robotaxis. It supplies that technology both to mass-produced cars sold by major automakers and to robotaxi fleets, a business model that has made it one of the most closely watched names in China’s race to put autonomous vehicles on public roads.
What sets Momenta apart is the list of companies that already own a piece of it. Carmaker SAIC Motor holds about 9.45%, General Motors roughly 9.4%, Mercedes-Benz 6.39%, and Toyota 1.54%, with additional stakes held by BYD, Chery and Hyundai. Investment firms Temasek and Tencent are also backers. General Motors first put money into the company in 2021, announcing a $300 million investment to help develop self-driving technology for its vehicles in China.
That automaker backing is central to the pitch Momenta is making to public investors. The company is presenting itself as a supplier whose global carmaker relationships could help it win business abroad at a time when geopolitical tension is weighing on its main domestic rival, Huawei Technologies.
The offering is drawing well-known names as anchor buyers. Cornerstone investors for the IPO may include existing backer Mercedes-Benz, along with BlackRock and Chinese investment firm Boyu Capital.
The financial picture shows a company growing quickly but still losing large sums. Revenue rose from 743 million yuan in 2023 to 1.33 billion yuan in 2024 and 2.41 billion yuan in 2025. At the same time, the company reported a loss of 3.46 billion yuan, about $509 million, in 2025, wider than the 3.21 billion yuan loss the year before. In other words, sales are climbing fast, but the cost of developing driverless technology is climbing even faster.
The company argues it has already captured a commanding share of one part of the market. It claims about 64.5% of the global market for urban Level 2 assisted driving, the kind of system that helps steer and brake in city traffic while a human remains responsible. The harder and far more expensive goal is full autonomy, where no driver is needed at all.
Momenta is not going public in a vacuum. It follows rival self-driving firms Pony AI and WeRide, which have already tapped Hong Kong’s markets to fund their own development. The city has become the destination of choice for these listings after the broader market there roared back to life. Hong Kong share sales raised $21.6 billion in the first half of 2026, a 51% jump from a year earlier, according to LSEG data. Momenta had previously considered listing in the United States, where it confidentially filed for an IPO in 2024 before shifting its plans.
The company is also pushing beyond China. It has been building out a research hub in Germany, where it plans to begin piloting fully driverless Level 4 vehicles in 2026 in partnership with Uber.
For the automakers on its shareholder list, the listing is a chance to put a value on a bet many of them made years ago, and a sign that the self-driving software business is maturing from a research project into a public company investors can buy. For General Motors, which has scaled back its own driverless ambitions in the United States, the stake offers a foothold in China’s autonomous market through a partner rather than a wholly owned operation. Whether Momenta can turn its fast-growing sales into sustained profits remains the key question new investors will be watching.
JBizNews Desk
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