(Yicai Global) March 8 -- Zhihu, China's largest question-and-answer website, is looking to go public on the New York Stock Exchange to raise about USD1 billion.

The platform, which had 75.7 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2020, submitted its prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Beijing-based company's filing disclosed on March 6.

Zhihu would use the proceeds to develop products and services to expand and enhance its content services. It would try to attract more users and strengthen user retention. It would develop artificial intelligence, Big Data, and cloud computing technologies. Moreover, it would earmark some funds for strategic investments and acquisitions.

The platform had 43.1 million content creators and 315 million Q&A entries as of Dec. 31, 2020. Most of the users are from first-tier or second-tier cities. Almost four-fifths of its MAUs in December were younger than 30 years old.

Founded in 2010, Zhihu is not yet profitable. The company made a loss of CNY517.6 million (USD79.5 million) last year. But it had lost as much as CNY1 billion (USD153.6 million) the previous year.

In 2020, Zhihu earned CNY1.4 billion in revenue, more than double from a year earlier. Most of the income came from online advertising. But that was slowly changing. The portion of paid subscriptions had widened to 23.7 percent of the total revenue from 13.1 percent from a year ago.

Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs Group, and J.P. Morgan Chase are the IPO-hopeful's underwriters.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi