Beijing-based AI lab Moonshot AI has raised approximately $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation, according to a post by Huafeng Capital, which advised some investors in the round. The funding was announced in May 2026 and was led by Meituan’s venture arm, Long-Z Investment, with participation from Tsinghua Capital, China Mobile, and CPE Yuanfeng.
The raise is part of a broader fundraising surge for the company. Moonshot has collected $3.9 billion over the past six months alone. Its valuation stood at $4.3 billion at the end of 2025, more than doubled to $10 billion following a $700 million raise in early 2026, and has since grown to $20 billion with this latest round.
Moonshot AI was founded in 2023 by Yang Zhilin, a former Meta AI and Google Brain researcher. The company develops the Kimi series of open-weight large language models. Its Kimi K2.5 model attracted significant attention in the coding space earlier this year, posting performance figures close to those of OpenAI 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 company’s annualized recurring revenue topped $200 million in April 2026, driven by growth in paid subscriptions and API usage, according to Huafeng Capital’s post.
The funding reflects rising investor interest in open-weight AI models from Chinese labs. Rival DeepSeek is reportedly in talks to raise outside capital for the first time at a valuation of around $45 billion. Two other competitors, Zhipu AI and MiniMax, have already gone public in Hong Kong, ending a recent trading day with market caps of roughly $55.9 billion and $33 billion, respectively, following rallies tied to new model releases.
Moonshot’s existing backers include Alibaba, Tencent, HongShan, ZhenFund, IDG Capital, and 5Y Capital.
Source: TechCrunch