LiDAR maker Hesai Group marked its Nasdaq debut, becoming the first Chinese LiDAR manufacturing company to list in the US, after regulatory risks apparently eased in the past few months.

Hesai began trading on Thursday under the ticker HSAI, opening at $23.75, up 25 percent from its offering price. As of Thursday's close, the company's shares were trading at $21.05, up 10.79 percent, with a market capitalization of $2.6 billion. Hesai's initial public offering (IPO) was priced at $19 per share, at the top of its guidance range.

The company made a public offering of 10 million ADS shares for gross proceeds of about $190 million, making it the largest IPO of a Chinese company in the US in the past 18 months.

Founded in Shanghai in late 2014, Hesai initially focused on developing high-performance laser sensors and has been exploring driverless LiDAR products since 2016. In early 2021, Hesai filed to go public on China's Nasdaq-style sci-tech innovation board, also known as the STAR market, with a goal of raising RMB 2 billion at the time, valuing the company at more than 10 billion yuan. However, the company withdrew the IPO in March 2021.

From 2019 to 2021, Hesai's net revenue was RMB 348.1 million, $415.5 million and $720.8 million, respectively, with 19.4 percent growth in 2020 compared to 2019 and 73.5 percent year-on-year growth in 2021, according to Hesai's prospectus.

For the first three quarters of 2022, the company's net revenue was RMB 793.5 million, up 72.7 percent from RMB 459.4 million for the same period in 2021.