(Yicai Global) Dec. 21 -- SenseTime Group has relaunched its HKD6 billion (USD769 million) Hong Kong initial public offering a week after delaying it because the US government added China’s biggest artificial intelligence firm to an investment blacklist. SenseTime has now removed the IPO’s overseas cornerstone investors.

SenseTime still plans to sell 1.5 billion shares at between HKD3.85 and HKD3.99 (49 US cents and 51 US cents) each, the Hong Kong-based company said in a stock exchange filing yesterday. But it will rely only on Chinese cornerstone backers that will subscribe for USD512 million of shares, versus USD450 million previously, it said. The stock will debut on Dec. 30.

Replacing Pleiad Investment Advisors, WT Funds, Focustar Capital, Hel Ved Capital Management, and China’s GF Fund Management as anchor investors are Shanghai Xuhui Capital, Guotai Junan Securities, HKSTP Venture Fund, C-Mer Eye Care Holdings, and Taizhou Culture and Tourism.

SenseTime suspended the IPO on Dec. 13 after the US Treasury Department announced on Dec. 10 that it was adding the firm to a list of “Chinese military-industrial complex companies,” thereby preventing US investors from investing in the AI startup. It is the second time that the US has added SenseTime to the blacklist.

Among global AI unicorns ranked by value, SenseTime is second only to San Francisco-based Grammarly, an annual list compiled by the Hurun Research Institute showed yesterday. SenseTime is worth USD12 billion, according to the Global Unicorn Index 2021.

Mainly known for its face recognition technology, SenseTime has raised USD5.2 billion in 12 funding rounds since being set up in 2014 and has expanded into the fields of smart commerce, smart cities, smart life, and smart autos. It was Asia’s largest AI firm by revenue last year with a market share of 14 percent, per the IPO prospectus.

Editor: Futura Costaglione, Xiao Yi