(June 8): Moonshot AI is seeking as much as US$2 billion in a new funding round that would value the startup at US$30 billion, initiating its third financing in six months to keep pace with rivals in China’s intensifying artificial intelligence race.
The developer of the Kimi chatbot has held early talks with prospective investors to raise more than US$1 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The discussions have begun just as Moonshot is on the verge of closing a round led by Meituan that valued the AI firm at US$20 billion after the investment, the people said. If Moonshot hits its latest funding target, that would mark a seven-fold increase in capitalisation from December, when the startup was valued at just over US$4 billion.
The Beijing-based company is emerging as one of the best-funded Chinese AI research labs, as investors pour capital into an elite group vying with OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. The latest fundraising would help Moonshot eclipse publicly listed peer Minimax Group Inc, which commanded a market value of about US$20 billion as of Monday. Both still lag Zhipu’s approximately US$80 billion, and the roughly US$50 billion that DeepSeek is seeking in its debut funding round.
The deliberations surrounding Moonshot are at an early stage and details of the fundraising could still change, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. A Moonshot spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Moonshot’s annual recurring revenue — a gauge of its forward-looking sales — topped US$200 million in April, driven by surging demand for its chatbot and large language models.
The Kimi developer is in the process of dismantling its offshore structure to pave the way for an initial public offering in Hong Kong, after Beijing tightened its grip on overseas listings. The overhaul will not affect its access to US dollar-denominated funds, as the firm is planning to set up a joint-venture structure that allows foreign backers, Bloomberg News reported last month.
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Moonshot was founded by Yang Zhilin, a former Tsinghua University professor who previously worked at Meta Platforms Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google. The company sells tiered subscription plans for its chatbot and offers its underlying technology to enterprise clients. It recently launched a general-purpose AI agent, called Kimi Work, built atop its latest K2.6 series models.
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