Report: Kling AI picks banks for $1 billion Hong Kong IPO

Kuaishou Technology has picked China International Capital Corp., Goldman Sachs and UBS to arrange a Hong Kong initial public offering for its AI video unit Kling that could raise at least $1 billion, Bloomberg reported on October 6, 2026, citing people familiar with the matter. The report said Kling is targeting a listing as soon as next year and that the size and timing could still change. Kuaishou has not confirmed the appointments, and in a voluntary announcement to the Hong Kong exchange on May 12 it said the restructuring behind any spinoff was preliminary and might not proceed.

A listing would put a separate market value on a business Kuaishou has carried inside a much larger company. Kuaishou, which trades in Hong Kong under the stock code 1024, keeps a majority stake in Kling, Tech in Asia reported. Kling raised about $2.8 billion in July 2026 at a valuation of about $18 billion, according to the South China Morning Post, which reported the round on July 1, 2026, and The Wall Street Journal. Crypto Briefing reported that Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu took part in the round and that Kuaishou's stake is expected to be diluted to about 68 percent.

The unit's revenue is growing fast from a small base. Kuaishou's second-quarter 2026 results, published on August 19, 2026, put Kling's quarterly revenue at more than RMB 850 million, up more than 200 percent from a year earlier, against total company revenue of RMB 35.5 billion. Tech in Asia reported Kling's annualized revenue topped $500 million in March 2026.

"Commercialization maintained strong growth momentum, with Kling AI generating revenue of over RMB850 million in the second quarter, representing year-over-year growth of more than 200.0%," Kuaishou co-founder, chairman and chief executive Cheng Yixiao said in the results announcement.

The product line has moved at the same pace. On September 28, 2026, Kling unveiled Kling 4.0, and its release notes state that "the all-new Kling 4.0 will officially launch in October." A lighter tier, Kling 4.0 Flash, entered early access on September 28 for Ultra Yearly subscribers, according to Kling's announcement post. Kling 4.0 generates clips from 3 to 30 seconds in a single pass, double the 15-second ceiling of the Kling 3.0 series, accepts up to 10 keyframe images, and takes up to 15 combined reference assets in one task: as many as 10 images, 5 videos with a combined duration of 30 seconds, and 7 subjects, with a voice reference attachable to a subject. It outputs at up to 4K with two-channel stereo audio, and Kling lists 10-bit HDR at 1080p and 4K, and extension of a clip to about two minutes, as coming soon.

Kling is positioned against ByteDance's Seedance, Tech in Asia and Crypto Briefing reported.

For creators, the figure to watch is the cost of the compute behind the model. Tech in Asia, citing industry analysis, reported that GPU inference constrains margins unless providers raise prices, limit quality or duration, or secure cheaper computing power. A standalone Kling with its own capital could keep buying that compute, which decides how long a clip can run at a given price. The reported $18 billion valuation is about 36 times Kling's $500 million in annualized revenue from March 2026, a multiple that assumes the growth holds.

Kling 4.0's full model is due for release in October, and Kling would still have to complete its restructuring and file listing documents before any Hong Kong IPO can proceed.