Moonshot AI, a Beijing-based developer of open-weight large language models, secured roughly $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation in a round led by Meituan’s venture arm, with Tsinghua Capital, China Mobile and CPE Yuanfeng participating. The funding underscores accelerating investor interest in lower-cost, open-weight AI systems as enterprises balance performance with inference economics. Founded in 2023 by former Meta AI and Google Brain researcher Yang Zhilin, Moonshot said annual recurring revenue surpassed $200 million in April, buoyed by paid subscriptions and API usage for its Kimi models, which have risen near the top of OpenRouter’s rankings. The deal comes amid a broader Chinese AI rally: DeepSeek is reportedly seeking its first outside funding at a $45 billion valuation, while rivals Zhipu AI and MiniMax have surged in Hong Kong trading following new model launches.
Related articles:
— Alibaba’s Qwen large language model (open-source release)
— DeepSeek-Coder: an open-source code LLM from deepseek-ai
