Kimi developer Moonshot AI valued at US$20b as it navigates China’s new IPO rules

The company raised US$2 billion from investors including Meituan and China Mobile, taking the total to US$3.9 billion in the last six months

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Moonshot AI has raised about US$2 billion in a new funding round, boosting its valuation to more than US$20 billion as it navigates Beijing’s new listing rules for companies registered overseas.

The funding was led by Meituan and involved China Mobile. Over the past six months, Moonshot had raised a total of US$3.9 billion, according to a statement by the deal’s financial adviser HF Capital on Thursday.

The Beijing-based company, best known for its Kimi chatbot, saw its annual recurring revenue (ARR) exceed US$200 million in April, the statement said. ARR is used to project a firm’s 12-month revenue by extrapolating earnings from a shorter period, like a month or a quarter. US AI start-up Anthropic’s ARR recently crossed US$30 billion.

Moonshot’s valuation of US$20 billion “still has significant room for growth” as the market caps of its Hong Kong-listed peers Zhipu AI, traded as Knowledge Atlas Technology, and MiniMax, were much higher, according to HF Capital. The market caps of Zhipu AI and MiniMax stood at HK$434.7 billion (US$55.5 billion) and HK$257 billion, respectively, on Thursday.

The funding came as Moonshot, whose assets were held by a parent registered in the Cayman Islands, is pursuing a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) under the latest rules implemented by Beijing, according to a source close to the company.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission has advised firms with offshore holding entities to restructure and pursue listings through their mainland entities instead. Where offshore structures are retained, the market regulator requires companies to justify their necessity.

Moonshot was considering unwinding the structure to list in Hong Kong, but it had not arrived at a decision, the source said. Similarly, peer StepFun was unwinding its structure to pave the way for a Hong Kong IPO, according to a Reuters report last month.