A hotly-anticipated tech company’s float on the stock market has missed expectations.

Shares of Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, have been sold in its initial public offering.

Weibo’s opening on the US Nasdaq exchange came at a rough time for global tech stocks.

As a result, the plan to raise around $US380 million by selling 20 million shares for $19 each did not work. Demand through underwriters was only enough to sell 16.8 million shares for just $17, bringing in $287 million.

The shaky start picked up with the confidence of retail investors. They sent the shares soaring to $21, finally valuing the company at nearly $4.3 billion.

Weibo sports 144 million active monthly users, as is China’s largest social media service.

Sina Weibo CEO Charles Chao admitted it was a rough start.

“It's a tough market - the entire IPO market is rather soft,” he said.

“To have a successful listing for us is probably the most important, we do not actually care too much about the temporary price for the stock.

“If we can over the longer term keep executing our strategies and innovating in a very focused way, we can create shareholder value.”

Weibo will need some effort to dig it from its consistently low figures. The company lost $38 million last year on revenues of $188 million, and another $47 million this year, though revenues did increase to nearly $68 million for the first quarter of this year.

Mr Chao says it is unlikely that the downturn in the Chinese economy has played a big role.

“Maybe a downturn in the economy will have some impact on the advertising business we are doing, but over the longer term, we're not concerned at all,” he said.

“The Internet has proven that it is very resilient...what the Internet does is, it increases the efficiency of everything, and so sometimes in bad times Internet companies can perform better.”

Posts on all social media in China are subject to strict censorship laws, but Mr Chao insists things are changing.

“There is no question that each country will have their own rules in terms of regulating the content industry or content behaviour by users on the Internet... China is no exception,” he said.

“We are very experienced, in terms of complying with the laws and regulations in this area, so I don't think it's a big concern for us.”