Shares in Chinese video app company Kuaishou almost tripled on their Hong Kong debut Friday, following a $5.4 billion initial public offering that was the biggest for an internet firm since 2019.

Kuaishou, which means "fast hand" in Chinese, operates apps that allow user-uploaded videos as well as livestreaming programs through which vendors can promote consumer products.

The company, backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd, saw its shares soar to HK$338 at the open, from an IPO price of HK$115. It was valued at $30 billion after raising $3 billion from backers in late 2019.

Kuaishou has over 19,900 employees, the company said in its prospectus. The platform has an average of 305 million daily active users in China. Users spend over 86 minutes a day on the Kuaishou app on average, according to the company, which started out in 2011 as a platform sharing GIFs, or animated images, and later expanded into short videos and livestreaming.

Kuaishou's prospectus shows that the online video site's revenue rose from 8.3 billion yuan ($1.28 billion) in 2017 to 40.7 billion yuan ($6.3 billion) in the nine months ended September 2020.

The company also created Zynn, an app that has surged in popularity abroad, especially in the United States.

With Zynn, Kuaishou is trying to dethrone TikTok, the app made by its Beijing-based competitor Bytedance that has become a worldwide sensation.

(With input from AFP, Reuters)