중국 문샷 AI, 오픈소스 수요 폭발에 200억 달러 가치로 20억 달러 유치

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. 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. 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 . 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. Techcrunch event This Week Only: Buy one pass, get the second at 50% off Your next round. Your next hire. Your next breakout opportunity. Find it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders gather for three days of 250+ tactical sessions, powerful introductions, and market-defining innovation. Register before May 8 to bring a +1 at half the cost. This Week Only: Buy one pass, get the second at 50% off Your next round. Your next hire. Your next breakout opportunity. Find it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders gather for three days of 250+ tactical sessions, powerful introductions, and market-defining innovation. Register before May 8 to bring a +1 at half the cost. San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026 REGISTER NOW 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. 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. Topics AI , Asia , China , China , kimi , large language models , moonshot ai , Startups When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Kate Park Reporter, Asia Kate Park is a reporter at TechCrunch, with a focus on technology, startups and venture capital in Asia. She previously was a financial journalist at Mergermarket covering M&A, private equity and venture capital. View Bio May 27 Athens, Greece StrictlyVC Athens is up next. Hear unfiltered insights straight from Europe’s tech leaders and connect with the people shaping what’s ahead. Lock in your spot before it’s gone. REGISTER NOW Most Popular As workers worry about AI, Nvidia's Jensen Huang says AI is ‘creating an enormous number of jobs' Lucas Ropek Elon Musk sent ominous texts to Greg Brockman, Sam Altman after asking for a settlement, OpenAI claims Julie Bort Tim Fernholz Anthropic and OpenAI are both launching joint ventures for enterprise AI services Russell Brandom Ouster's new color lidar is coming to replace cameras Sean O'Kane We'll take it: A TikToker rallies pledges to buy Spirit Airlines after its abrupt weekend collapse Connie Loizos This tiny, magnetic e-reader could stop you from doomscrolling Amanda Silberling Uber wants to turn its millions of drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies Connie Loizos