Chinese social networking company Momo debuts on Nasdaq

China's mobile social networking platform Momo Inc. listed its shares Thursday on the NASDAQ global select market.

The company announced that its initial public offering of 16 million American depositary shares (ADSs) was priced at 13.5 US dollars per ADS for a total offering size of 216 million dollars.

Momo's shares opened trading at 14.25 dollars a share under the ticker symbol "MOMO".

Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, and China Renaissance Securities are acting as joint bookrunners for the offering.

The company has granted the underwriters an option, exercisable within 30 days from the date of the final prospectus, to purchase up to 2.4 million additional ADSs at the price of 13.5 dollars.

Yan Tang, founder and chief executive officer of the company, said: "Momo was established in 2011. It's still a very young company. We are caught in the era of rapid spread of mobile Internet in China, and have correct positioning for our products."

"Funds raised will be used for research and development, marketing and downstream industries for equity acquisitions," Tang said.

Momo connects people in a personal and lively way through a mobile-based social networking platform. With precise location- based features, Momo enables users to connect with each other and expand relationships from online to offline.

Momo's platform includes the Momo mobile application and a variety of related features, functionalities, tools and services that it provides to users, customers and platform partners.

According to the company, Momo had 60.2 million active monthly users and an average of 25.5 million daily active users in September.