SenseTime

China's most valuable AI company has been blacklisted by Washington over its facial recognition technology.

SoftBank-backed company listed in December despite being added to U.S. blacklist.

The deal structure meant that only a comparatively small proportion of SenseTime’s overall shares could be readily bought and sold. It said that was meant “to express their confidence in the long term value and prospect of the group.” SenseTime has yet to turn a profit. SenseTime quickly resurrected the share offering and brought in Chinese state-owned investors to help get the deal done. “Our technologies are trusted by customers and partners in many industry verticals, and we believe that these will continue to attract market attention and enhance investor confidence,” he said. SenseTime disputed the allegation.

While a series of regulatory measures against Chinese tech giants, including Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., appear to be nearing an end, ...

But that simply proves that SenseTime has strayed a long way from its early promise of being a global technology leader in the booming AI industry. Much of its sales, however, are connected to government contracts primarily related to various forms of surveillance and tracking. SenseTime’s Smart City business, for example, has 140 municipalities on its client list and comprises almost half the company’s revenue. While nominally a software and services company, a large proportion of SenseTime’s business comes from selling and installing hardware. SenseTime Group Inc. shares took a battering Thursday, dropping as much as 51% and falling below the company’s December listing price. SenseTime and fellow AI company Megvii Technology Ltd. were on Washington’s list.

A co-founder of SenseTime Group Inc. lost almost half of his fortune after shares of the artificial intelligence giant plummeted as much as 51% on Thursday.

Tang Xiao'ou, the billionaire professor behind Chinese artificial intelligence giant SenseTime, saw his wealth plunge by $2.4 billion in just one day, ...

A SenseTime spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s stock market performance. In its annual report, the company blamed this on fair value losses of preferred shares as well as rising research costs, which stood at $457 million, or about 65% of last year’s total sales. SenseTime’s shares have been going down because investors are reassessing the company’s profit prospects, says Shen Meng, director of Beijing-based boutique investment bank Chanson & Co. A lock-up on a portion of SenseTime’s class B shares, including those owned by cornerstone investors, has expired today. It then reached a high of HK$9.7 per share on Jan.4, up more than two fold from its initial public offering price of HK$3.85 apiece, giving Tang a peak fortune of $8.6 billion. The 54-year-old now has a net worth of $3 billion, which is based on his ownership of 6,906.1 million class A shares in the company.

After shares of an Artificial Intelligence giant Sense Time Group Inc took a dive of as much as 51%, the Co-Founder of the group lost almost.

Some executives, including CEO Xu Li, pledged to extend the lock-up of their shares until Dec 29. A lock-up on a portion of the stock owned by cornerstone investors and shareholders — amounting to 23.4 billion shares — expired on Wednesday. His net worth plunged from about US $2.3 Billion to the US $2.9 billion.

(Bloomberg) — Chinese artificial intelligence software maker SenseTime Group Inc. slumped as much as 51% in Hong Kong on Thursday, after a lock-up of its ...

Like Huawei Technologies Co. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., the company was regarded as a national champions, a leader in a burgeoning field considered key to establishing China’s tech credentials globally. SenseTime joined a list of technology companies that have seen insiders selling their shares after a strong rebound since mid-March. This week, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s major backer announced it will further cut its stake in the company. The stock has rallied 18% since mid-April through Wednesday. SenseTime went public at the end of December after the original share-sale schedule was derailed after a move by the US Treasury Department to sanction the company for its alleged role in creating facial-recognition software used in the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang autonomous region of western China. The company dropped to trade at as low as HK$2.91 apiece, the lowest ever and below its initial public offering price of HK$3.85. A lock-up on a portion of the stock owned by cornerstone investors and shareholders — amounting to 23.4 billion of shares — expired on Wednesday. Most Read from Bloomberg