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Apr. 23 (NBD) -- DouYu International Holdings (DouYu), a Tencent-backed live-streaming platform, filed on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to 500 million U.S. dollars in an initial public offering.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and BofA Merrill Lynch are underwriters on the deal.

The Wuhan, China-based company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DOYU.

Proceeds of this offering will be mainly used to invest in content, for research and development, for brand marketing and for general corporate purposes, which may include acquisitions, said its prospectus.

DouYu, which primarily focuses on the live-streaming of games, ranked first by the size of its user base as measured by average total monthly active users (MAUs) on both mobile and PC platforms during the fourth quarter of 2017 and 2018, said the company in its filing, citing consulting firm iResearch's report.

The company booked its revenue of about 531.5 million U.S. dollars in 2018, showed the prospectus.

DouYu is backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent which has also invested in U.S.-listed Huya, DouYu's rival.

According to the iResearch, China is the world's largest game-centric live-streaming market, with approximately 4.9 times the MAUs of the U.S. market in 2018.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn