Subject

36Kr Holdings

NASDAQ: KRKR
LAST CLOSE 16:00 ET · opens in 2d 19h
Last Tick 15:40:30 ET
KRKR US Equity▮EVAP · Market-Cap Evaporation Monitor

A Chinese tech-media company, six years public, with 98.91% of its market cap evaporated and a valuation back down to single-digit millions of dollars. From IPO to today, every $1 of market cap has shrunk to 1.09¢.

IPO Cap
$569.00M
Now Cap
$6.20M
Evaporated
−$562.80M
Traj2019██▇▇▇▆▆▇▆▆▆▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▄▄▄▃▄▃▄▃▄▃▃▃▃▃▃2026
BaselineIPO 2019-11-08
Residual1.09¢ / $1
Updated2026-09-04 ET

Market State

Live basis
Live PriceNASDAQ · ADS
$3.09
▲+2.13%(+0.06$)
2026-09-04 EST
Market CapLive · Post-split
$6.20M
2007K ADS × $3.09
IPO EquivalentSplit-adjusted
$290.00
$14.5 original × 20
IPO Market CapBaseline
$569.00M
2019-11-08
On 2024-10-03 KRKR changed its ADS ratio: one ADS went from representing 25 Class A ordinary shares to 500, equivalent to a 1-for-20 ADS reverse split. Today's price is on the post-split basis, so comparing it with the original $14.50 IPO price is meaningless. The IPO Equivalent restates the IPO price on the current ADS basis: $290.
Dossier Brief · Copyable summary
The market no longer prices KRKR as a media company. It prices it as residual optionality: market cap down98.91% from IPO, with every $1 of IPO market cap now worth1.09¢.

Trajectory

Split-adjusted price path
IPO Equivalent
$290.00
Today
$3.09
Price Collapse
−98.93%
$0.5$1$3$10$30$100$3002020202120222023202420252026IPO1:20 SPLIT52W HIGH52W LOW$3.09 · TODAY
Log-scale y-axis ($1–$300). Monthly closes from Yahoo Finance, all restated on the 1-for-20 post-split basis. The $290 IPO open is the 2019-11-08 prospectus price × the split factor; the 52-week high/low and today's price are live. Hover the chart for monthly values.
ReadoutFrom a $290 split-adjusted IPO price to single digits, KRKR is no longer merely falling. It has entered the zone where price discovery stops working.

Death Counter

Evaporation clock · serious fun
ICU Monitor · Evaporation In Progress
Cumulative Evaporated
$562,800,256
This number keeps climbing while the page is open. Strictly speaking it is an accounting look-back, but stare long enough and it really does get bigger.
Days Since IPO
Time on the public market
2,493days
03:56:54 and counting
Per Second
Average evaporation rate
$2.61
Blink, and a cup of coffee is gone
Per Day
Average evaporation rate
$225,737
Roughly a senior big-tech salary, daily
To Zero
Progress toward zero
98.91%
1.09% of principal remains
IPO Cap → 0$569.00M → 0
Entertainment value > financial advice. Evaporation is measured against the $569.00M IPO-day baseline, with the instantaneous rate estimated by linear extrapolation. The real pace has been anything but linear.

Timeline

Descent path
  1. 2019-11-08
    IPO on NASDAQ
    Listed on NASDAQ at $14.50 per ADS, selling 1.38M ADSs to raise about $20M, with an opening market cap of roughly $569M. Broke issue on day one, closing down 9.93% at $13.06.
  2. 2020 – 2022
    Steady Decline
    Persistent losses (EPS of −$6.14), a sector-wide de-rating of US-listed Chinese stocks, and shrinking ad revenue took the share price from double digits at listing to single digits.
  3. 2023 – 2024
    Penny Stock Territory
    Entered penny-stock territory, trading below $1 for extended periods and triggering NASDAQ's minimum bid price compliance warning. Daily volume collapsed; no institution wanted the other side.
  4. 2024-10-03
    1:20 Reverse Split
    The ADS ratio changed from 1 ADS = 25 ordinary shares to 1 ADS = 500, equivalent to a 1-for-20 reverse ADS split, done to lift the nominal price and avoid delisting. Pre-split price $0.295; theoretical post-split price about $5.90.
  5. 2025-09-08
    Post-split 52-week High
    A short post-split rebound to $21.36: sentiment bounced off the floor, but fundamentals did not improve and the rally faded.
  6. 2026-07-17
    Post-split 52-week Low
    Fell back to $2.50, breaking below the pre-split equivalent low once again.
  7. 2026-09-04 · Today
    Near-zero Residual
    Market cap is down 98.9% from IPO, leaving roughly $6.20M. The share price has entered the zone where price discovery no longer works.

Why It Collapsed

Incident report
Finding 01 ·Failure Mode
Fundamentals & People · Bleeding on both fronts
Financially: persistent losses, negative cash flow, EPS stuck around −$6.14, and no new growth curve. Organizationally: the founder stepped back, senior writers and editors left one after another, and the CEO/CFO seats turned over repeatedly. Media is a people business. When the business stops generating cash and the organization stops generating talent at the same time, editorial edge and product judgment get diluted, and the company never completed the handover from its founding generation to professional management.
Finding 02 ·Failure Mode
Sector Compression · The China ADR de-rating
From 2021, US-listed Chinese stocks were marked down as a group, compounded by the HFCAA audit dispute, platform regulation, and pressure on the renminbi. As a small-cap Chinese media ADR, KRKR sat on the sharpest edge of that liquidity collapse.
Finding 03 ·Failure Mode
Ad Market Freeze · The advertising winter
China's internet advertising market became a zero-sum fight over a fixed pie, and vertical tech media's share of it shrank. 36Kr's content-advertising business came under pressure, with subscriptions and value-added services not yet large enough to offset it.
Finding 04 ·Failure Mode
Liquidity Collapse · Volume dried up
Average daily volume fell to the 30–50K ADS range. Institutional holders had long since exited, leaving only retail flow. Bid-ask spreads widened, and a single small order could move the price.
Finding 05 ·Failure Mode
Delisting Risk · Compliance pressure
Trading below $1 for extended periods triggered NASDAQ's minimum bid price warning. On 2024-10-03 the company was forced into a 1-for-20 reverse split, lifting the price back to the $5–6 range. That was an accounting lift, not a re-rating.
Finding 06 ·Failure Mode
Structural Trap · No catalyst left
After the split there was no refinancing, no M&A, and no business reinvention to trigger a re-rating, so the price kept decaying with fundamentals. Capital cannot be recovered at any meaningful scale. This is a liquidity trap.

Peer Context

Peer valuation comps

KRKR's collapse is not one company's failure. It is a stress test of the whole route of taking an independent media brand to the public market: once the ad cycle turns, platform distribution breaks and the cost of debt and of being listed rises, capital markets switch quickly from a growth narrative to a salvage narrative.

ThesisKRKR is no longer valued as a media company, but as residual optionality.
Valuation Snapshot · Peer comps
36KrSubject
KRKR · NASDAQ · listed
Mkt cap
$6.20M
vs peak
−99%
Revenue
$38.00M
P/S
0.16×
Fighting on the delisting edgePenny stock / no financing since the reverse split
No new funding round after the reverse split pulled it back from the delisting line, with advertising and content monetization under pressure at the same time. The public market no longer prices it on media-growth logic, only on residual and shell value.
BuzzFeed
BZFD · NASDAQ · listed
Mkt cap
$75.00M
vs peak
−95%
Revenue
$190.00M
P/S
0.39×
Surviving cheaply after the SPACByron Allen investment / change of control
Went public via SPAC in 2021 and has been squeezed ever since by the advertising and platform-traffic model. In 2026 it traded a new investor and a change of control for a liquidity cushion.
Vice Media
— · Ch.11 → private
Mkt cap
$350.00M
vs peak
−94%
Revenue
$600.00M
P/S
0.58×
Post-bankruptcy saleSold to creditors out of bankruptcy
The one-time global youth-media unicorn entered Chapter 11 in 2023 and was sold in a lender-led process. A high-valuation media brand ended up back in asset-disposal logic.
Forbes
— · Private · SPAC withdrawn
Mkt cap
$800.00M
vs peak
−4%
Revenue
$200.00M
P/S
4.00×
Abandoned SPAC listingRetreated from the public market
Terminated its SPAC listing plan in 2022, a sign that even a stronger financial-media brand struggles to secure a stable valuation premium in the public market.
Vox Media
— · Private · merged
Mkt cap
$1.00B
vs peak
−23%
Revenue
$400.00M
P/S
2.50×
Staying privateMerged with Group Nine to hold scale
Considered a SPAC listing, then chose to merge with Group Nine in 2022 instead of going public. Independent digital media keeps testing the public market and returning to private structures, which says something about the sector's valuation ceiling.
Note: private-company valuations use the most recent disclosed mark (financing round, acquisition, or SPAC roadshow) and may differ from book value. P/S = market cap ÷ recent-year revenue, shown only for cross-peer comparison, not as a trading recommendation. The KRKR row updates with the live NASDAQ quote. The Outcome column carries each peer's story.

Endgame

Three possible endings
Scenario AMost likely
Zombie Listing
Stay nominally listed, meeting NASDAQ's minimum bid price through periodic reverse splits. No institutional coverage, no analyst following, no real liquidity. This is where most Chinese microcap ADRs end up, and it can last for years or a decade.
Scenario BMedium
Going Private
Management or a controlling shareholder takes the company private at a thin premium to a floor price. It is a common route after a valuation collapse, but it needs cash or an acquirer, which is a real constraint at KRKR's current size.
Scenario CMedium
Compliance Delisting
If the post-split price falls back below $1 for an extended period, or market cap drops below NASDAQ's minimum and cannot recover within the compliance window, the stock is delisted to the OTC pink sheets. At that point investability is close to zero.

Background

Company origins

36Kr was founded in Beijing in 2010 by Liu Chengcheng as China's answer to TechCrunch, built on startup coverage and venture data. At its peak it was valued at close to $1 billion, with businesses spanning news, the Kr Planet community, the Jingdata platform, and 36Kr Pro.

In November 2019, 36Kr listed on NASDAQ as KRKR, a landmark US IPO for Chinese tech media. The market had hoped for a content-plus-data flywheel, but the stock broke issue on day one, falling 9.93%, and over the following six years the share price and market cap entered a decline with no reversal.

SEC Filings

Filings and annual reports, annotated
Investor Relations · Primary documents
Narratives fade; filings do not. Below are the key documents 36Kr (CIK 1779476) has filed with the SEC, from the IPO prospectus through the reverse split to the shelf registration: a chain of evidence for the capital collapse, written in statutory disclosures.
  1. 2026-05-19
    20-F/A

    FY2025 Annual Report — Amendment No. 1

    ReadAmends and restates only three parts of the original FY2025 annual report: the risk factors, the memorandum and articles of association, and the exhibit index. It adds the corrected fourth amended and restated articles and the corrected 2019 Share Incentive Plan approved by the board on 2026-03-14. A technical compliance fix; no financial restatement.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
  2. 2026-04-23
    20-F

    FY2025 Annual Report (Form 20-F)

    Annual report
    ReadThe statutory annual report for a foreign private issuer. FY2025 revenue was about RMB 228M (roughly $32.6M), and the company swung from a RMB 140.8M net loss the prior year to a net profit of about RMB 11.4M (roughly $1.6M), its first profit in years. But the profit sits on a small and still-shrinking revenue base, and comes more from cost cutting than from growth.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
  3. 2025-09-26
    F-3

    Shelf Registration Statement

    Dilution risk
    ReadAn F-3 lets the company issue shares or ADSs at any time, in tranches, once effective. For a stock that has already become a microcap, this is usually the setup for potential issuance and shareholder dilution, and on a book this thin any issuance can be amplified into price pressure.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
  4. 2025-04-17
    20-F

    FY2024 Annual Report (Form 20-F)

    ReadThe first full annual report after the reverse split. FY2024 revenue was about RMB 231M (roughly $31.7M), down year on year; the net loss widened from RMB 89.2M the prior year to RMB 140.8M (roughly $19.3M). The split lifted the nominal price and nothing else: no fundamental repair, no re-rating.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
  5. 2024-09-19
    6-K

    ADS Ratio Change Announcement

    Reverse split
    ReadAnnounced that each ADS would represent 500 Class A ordinary shares instead of 25, the equivalent of a 1-for-20 reverse ADS split, effective at the open on 2024-10-03. The underlying share count did not change; this was a purely mechanical lift of the ADS price to satisfy listing rules. Total market cap and fundamentals moved not one cent. A life-extension in accounting terms.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
  6. 2024-05-03
    6-K

    Additional Compliance Period — Minimum Bid Price

    Delisting pressure
    ReadNot the first deficiency notice. On 2023-11-03 the company had already received a NASDAQ warning for closing below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days. This filing discloses that, after transferring from the Nasdaq Global Market to the Capital Market, it was granted a second 180-day cure period (to 2024-10-28). This is the direct backdrop to the forced reverse split months later, and marks the point where the slide into penny-stock status became a regulatory countdown.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
  7. 2019-11-12
    424B4

    IPO Final Prospectus

    IPO
    ReadLocked in the $14.50 per ADS offering price and underwriting terms for the Nasdaq Global Market listing (ticker KRKR), raising about $20M. This is where the capital narrative begins: the first time the public market put a price on the premium-content-plus-business-data model.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
  8. 2019-09-30
    F-1

    IPO Registration Statement

    ReadThe registration statement that started the US IPO, and the first systematic disclosure of the business model, shareholding structure, and financials. Every public-market narrative that followed unfolds from this document.
    View original · SEC EDGAR
View all filings on SEC EDGAR

Further Reading

Indexed topics
Topic 01KRKR
Stock History
A walk through 36Kr Holdings (NASDAQ: KRKR) share-price history since IPO, the 1-for-20 ADS reverse-split adjustment, and why comparing today's price with the raw $14.50 IPO price is misleading.
Topic 02KRKR
IPO Baseline
The offering price, first-day performance, and market-cap baseline of 36Kr's 2019 US IPO, and why this site uses $569M as the reference point for value evaporation.
Topic 03KRKR
Delisting Risk
Why KRKR faces NASDAQ minimum-bid-price pressure, what the 2024 ADS reverse split solved, and what it did not.
Topic 04KRKR
Media Valuation
36Kr alongside BuzzFeed, Vice, Forbes, and Vox: the advertising cycle, platform distribution, and the valuation pressure digital media faces in public markets.
Topic 05KRKR
FAQ
Answers to common questions about the 36Kr KRKR share price, market-cap evaporation, the reverse split, delisting risk, data sources, and this site's methodology.
Closing Note
This is not a stock chart.It is the record of a capital narrative losing its believers.
A public market does not only price revenue. It prices belief, patience, liquidity, and the possibility that a story can still become larger than itself.