Chinese companies are scrambling to list on the U.S. stock markets in a bid to replenish their capital.

The latest example is Beijing-based technology outsourcer iSoftStone that on December 14 debuted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), raising $141 million from its sales of 10.83 million American depositary receipts. Before this, the Hangzhou-based Sky-Mobi, operator of China's largest mobile application store, on December 10 raised $58 million from its initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq.

By December 19, 40 Chinese companies, the largest number of companies since 2007's record of 37, had raised a total of $3.5 billion from their IPOs in the United States. Among the 40, 22 listed on the NYSE, 17 on Nasdaq and one on the American Stock Exchange.

"Given that the U.S. economy is not growing very fast, if it is growing at all, U.S. investors are naturally drawn to China," said Nick Einhorn, an analyst with Renaissance Capital, an IPO research and investment fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

"Chinese IPOs are here to stay. They are performing well because investors are looking for high-growth companies with strong margins and a clear business model."

Many capital-hungry Chinese companies chose the U.S. stock markets in part due to the much lower threshold for IPOs, said Li Daxiao, Director of the Yingda Securities Research Institute.