Momenta Global launched its Hong Kong IPO today seeking $751 million, pricing at HK$295.60 per share with trading set for July 8, as the autonomous driving software company makes the case that 71% gross margins can eventually outrun 3.46 billion yuan in annual losses.
The numbers Momenta filed with Hong Kong's stock exchange tell two stories at once, and which one you believe will determine whether its HK$295.60 per share price looks cheap or delusional. Revenue nearly doubled to 2.41 billion yuan in 2025, an 82% jump driven by licensing fees that expanded 42 times over as high-volume models from BYD and Mercedes-Benz hit production roads. Gross margins climbed from 17.5% in 2023 to 71.6% by end-2025, a profile that looks less like an automotive supplier and more like enterprise software. And yet losses widened to 3.46 billion yuan last year, up from 3.21 billion yuan in 2024, as the company poured capital into R&D at a pace that revenue, however fast-growing, cannot yet match.
Founded in 2016 by Cao Xudong, a former Microsoft researcher, Momenta has built its business on a specific bet: that the most durable position in autonomous driving isn't building robotaxis or manufacturing hardware, but licensing the software stack that runs inside cars people are already buying. Its M-Pilot system handles steering, braking, lane changes, and parking, and automakers pay per-vehicle royalties estimated between $500 and $1,500 depending on the configuration. By the end of 2025, more than 680,000 vehicles were running its software, with Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, GM, BYD, and Audi all in the customer list. That fleet also feeds Momenta's data pipeline, which the company uses to develop higher levels of autonomy without needing to deploy its own test vehicles at scale.
The software-royalty model is the cleanest argument for the IPO. When licensing fees represent roughly 65% of total revenue and margins approach 72%, the math can eventually work, provided the vehicle fleet keeps expanding and automakers don't decide to build their own stacks. Both of those assumptions carry risk. Chinese automakers in particular have made in-house software capability a strategic priority, and BYD, one of Momenta's own partners, has invested heavily in proprietary driver-assistance development. Partners can become competitors. That tension doesn't disappear just because Momenta has a head start.
Momenta's choice of Hong Kong is less a preference than a structural reality. As Reuters and Caixin Global have both reported this month, more than 85% of Chinese AI-related companies that have gone public in 2026 have listed in Hong Kong rather than New York. The US Treasury's outbound investment rule, which took effect in January 2025 and has since expanded, restricts American investment in Chinese companies operating in AI and advanced technology. A company with Momenta's profile, autonomous driving software with military-adjacent implications, would face serious obstacles trying to price on the Nasdaq today. Hong Kong, meanwhile, has become the world's top IPO market by funds raised in Q1 2026, pulling in $14 billion across 40 listings, a 489% increase over the same period in 2025, according to data highlighted by Global Finance Magazine.
The cornerstone investor lineup reinforces how strategically Momenta has positioned itself. Mercedes-Benz, already a customer and existing backer, is joined by BlackRock and China's Boyu Capital as anchor investors. That mix, a global automaker, the world's largest asset manager, and a well-connected Chinese private equity firm, gives the offering credibility across multiple audiences simultaneously. It also signals that the valuation, implied at roughly $9 billion based on the IPO price, has cleared a serious institutional bar.
The harder part is sustaining the story beyond listing day. Momenta plans to spend about 60% of the $751 million raised on R&D, specifically AI computing infrastructure and data storage, which is the right allocation for a company whose edge is model quality rather than hardware manufacturing. But R&D spending at this scale against a revenue base that, while growing fast, still runs at a fraction of the loss figure means the path to profitability stretches years out. Investors are being asked to bet on the terminal margin structure of the autonomous driving software market, not on current earnings. That's a reasonable bet if you believe the platform wins. It's an expensive one if the automakers you depend on decide they'd rather own the stack themselves.
Trading begins July 8. The allocation results land the day before. What happens in the weeks after will tell us something real about how much appetite global capital actually has for Chinese AI at a $9 billion valuation, not just in principle, but at the current price.
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