Alibaba Group conducted the largest IPO before Saudi Aramco, raising $25 billion in New York in 2014.
Alibaba listed its American depositary shares on the New York Stock Exchange on September 19, 2014. The offering raised $21.8 billion at first, and the underwriters later exercised an option that lifted the total to $25 billion. That made it the largest initial public offering in history at the time.
The Chinese company was founded by Jack Ma and began as an online business-to-business marketplace. Its later ecosystem expanded to consumer shopping, cloud computing, digital payments through affiliated businesses, logistics, and entertainment.
Alibaba’s IPO is sometimes confused with the much larger market value of the company after listing. An IPO’s proceeds measure money raised by selling shares, while market capitalization measures the value of all outstanding shares. Saudi Aramco surpassed Alibaba’s fundraising record in 2019.