$BABA $JD — China’s Zhihu to start U.S. trading after weak IPO backed by Alibaba, JD.com and Tencent Mar. 26, 2021 9:50 AM ETZhihu, Inc - ADR (ZH)By: Jerry Kronenberg, SA News Editor Chinese question-and-answer website Zhihu Inc. (ZH) is set to begin trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange following an IPO that priced at a bottom-of-the-range $9.50 per share despite backing from Alibaba, JD.com and Tencent affiliates. Zhihu, whose name means “Know?” in Chinese, is a site where users post questions and other users provide answers, similar to how U.S. site Quora operates. The company sold 55M American Depositary shares (ADSs) through its offering, which priced at the bottom of a $9.50-$11.50 expected range. Some top Chinese e-commerce firms also agreed to invest a total of $250M in the IPO via private placements. For instance, Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) affiliate Taobao is buying $100M of ADSs, as is JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) unit Purus Innovation Ltd. Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) affiliate Image Frame Investment (HK) Ltd. is also buying $30M of ADSs, while Lilith Games’ Lilith Ltd. is purchashing $20M of the shares. Zhihu also granted underwriters the option to buy 8.25M additional ADSs for any overallotments. All told, the IPO and private placement will raise $772.5M, or $850.9M if underwriters exercise all options for overallotments.