Recently, media reports suggested that Tencent participated in a $300 million funding round for Moonshot AI, a Chinese artificial intelligence unicorn, though Moonshot AI has not commented on the matter.
Moonshot AI's valuation had already reached $3 billion by May, making it a standout among large-scale AI startup companies.
Moonshot AI was founded in April 2023 by Professor Yang Zhilin from Tsinghua University. The company has attracted talent from top global enterprises such as Google, Meta, and Amazon, emphasizing both talent and technology. Professor Yang Zhilin's research in language models has been significant, with his XLNet model outperforming Google's BERT model in several metrics.
Moonshot AI completed an angel round of $60 million and secured hundreds of millions in a Pre-A round in July. In February 2024, the company raised over $1 billion, valuing it at $2.5 billion and setting a record for the largest single funding round for an AI startup in China. Shareholders include Alibaba, Sequoia China, and Capital Today.
According to AIwatch.ai, Moonshot AI's Kimi intelligent assistant saw significant monthly traffic growth in March and June 2024, becoming the top-visited AI chatbot in China.