Chinese AI companies may not be swimming in as much cash as their Western rivals, but their open-source models are still facing no shortage of interest from those who don’t mind a performance hit in exchange for cheap inference. And investors are taking notice. Moonshot AI, the Beijing-based AI lab developing the popular Kimi series of open-weight large language models, has raised about $2 billion at a valuation of $20 billion, according to a post by Huafeng Capital, which advised some investors who participated in the round.
A new funding round led by Meituan
The round was led by Chinese food delivery company Meituan’s VC arm, Long-Z Investment, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. Also participating were Tsinghua Capital, China Mobile and CPE Yuanfeng, according to the post. The company raised $3.9 billion over the past six months, according to Huafeng Capital. Moonshot was valued at $4.3 billion at the end of 2025, per reports, and by early 2026, that figure had more than doubled to $10 billion following a $700 million raise.
Also read: Dessn raises $6M to build a design tool that works directly on your codebase
Moonshot AI’s rapid rise
Moonshot AI was founded in 2023 by Yang Zhilin, a former Meta AI and Google Brain researcher, and quickly became one of China’s most popular AI labs after its open-weight Kimi K2.5 large language model took the coding world by storm earlier this year, nearly topping benchmarks and posting performance figures close to that of Open AI and Anthropic’s models at the time. The company’s latest model, Kimi K2.6, is currently the second-most used LLM on distribution platform, OpenRouter.
Investor appetite for Chinese open-weight models
The fundraising comes as investor appetite for open-weight AI models made by Chinese labs surges. Moonshot’s annual recurring revenue topped $200 million in April, driven by rapid growth in paid subscriptions and API usage, per the financial advisor’s post. DeepSeek, perhaps the most popular Chinese AI lab, is reportedly in talks to raise outside capital for the first time, at a valuation of about $45 billion. Some of Moonshot’s rivals have even gone public on the back of demand for their AI models. Zhipu AI, which trades in Hong Kong as Knowledge Atlas Technology, ended Thursday with a market cap of HK$434.7 billion (roughly $55.9 billion), while MiniMax ended the day at HK$257.3 billion ($33 billion), after both stocks rallied on new model releases.
Also read: How a $500M AI voice startup won Amazon Ring by taming the 'indeterminate beast' of language models
Competitive space and market relevance
Moonshot’s Kimi models compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, as well as ByteDance’s Doubao, Alibaba’s Qwen, Zhipu’s Z.ai, and DeepSeek. Moonshot’s backers include Alibaba, Tencent, HongShan (formerly known as Sequoia China), ZhenFund, IDG Capital and 5Y Capital. The funding signals a broader shift in the AI arena: open-weight models are no longer just experimental alternatives, but commercially viable products capable of generating significant revenue and attracting top-tier investors.
Conclusion
Moonshot AI’s latest $2 billion raise at a $20 billion valuation underscores the growing commercial and investor confidence in open-source AI models, particularly those originating from China. As the company continues to compete with global leaders, its success may further validate the open-weight approach as a sustainable and profitable path in the AI industry.
FAQs
Q1: What is Moonshot AI?
Moonshot AI is a Beijing-based AI lab founded in 2023 that develops the Kimi series of open-weight large language models, competing with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
Q2: Who led the latest funding round?
The round was led by Long-Z Investment, the venture capital arm of Chinese food delivery giant Meituan, with participation from Tsinghua Capital, China Mobile, and CPE Yuanfeng.
Q3: How does Moonshot AI compare to its competitors?
Moonshot’s Kimi models, particularly K2.5 and K2.6, have performed near the top of coding benchmarks and are widely used on platforms like OpenRouter. The company’s annual recurring revenue exceeded $200 million in April 2026.
Be the first to comment