Hot Chinese AI start-up Moonshot in talks for new funding, boosting valuation to US$3 billion

Moonshot AI is in talks with investors for additional funding that will boost its valuation by US$500 million over its previous round in February

Tencent is in talks to invest in the 1-year-old start-up, joining rival Alibaba, which led the previous round

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Moonshot AI has gone on a fundraising spree amid a surge in popularity of its Kimi chatbot. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 7:30pm, 21 May 2024

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Moonshot AI is in talks with investors for additional financing that would value it at more than US$3 billion, making it the highest valued start-up of China’s so-called Four New AI Tigers, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person, an investor at a local venture capital fund that backs Moonshot AI, declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. Moonshot AI’s latest funding was first reported by local news outlet TMTPost.

Chinese social media and video gaming giant Tencent Holdings also joined the round as a new investor, the person added. Moonshot AI and Tencent did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

If the funding goes through, the new valuation would be half a billion dollars higher than in February, after it raised US$1 billion in a round led by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Moonshot AI founder Yang Zhilin. Photo: Weibo / @极客公园

The Beijing-based start-up, known in Chinese as Yuezhi Anmian, is enjoying a rapid appreciation in its valuation amid a funding spree owing to the massive success of its Kimi chatbot. Founded a year ago, Moonshot has seen a surge in interest after it launched its ChatGPT-like product last October.

Kimi chatbot – built on the firm’s self-developed Kimi large language model (LLM), the technology underpinning intelligent conversational bots – has gained popularity among local users thanks in large part to its capabilities in handling extremely long text queries and responses.

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