YY Inc., which runs a Chinese online games portal, plans to launch a Nasdaq initial public offering (IPO) to raise up to $100 million, according to a filing it sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 15.

The company is one of few that are trying to go public amid the weak global economic climate and shrinking interest among investors in Chinese stocks, which are suffering from a poor image due to recent fraud scandals.

YY Inc., which operates online games portal Duowan.com and audio chat software YY Client, said in the filing that its net revenue increased from 32.7 million yuan ($5.22 million) in 2009 to 319.7 million yuan ($51.06 million) in 2011.

It made profits in the three quarters ending on June 30, with its net profit going from 4 million yuan ($638,800) in the fourth quarter of last year to 17.3 million yuan ($2.76 million) in the second quarter of this year, it said.

Its YY software, which had 400 million registered users by September, had 84.2 percent of the online group audio chatting market, according to figures provided by the domestic research company iResearch.