Kimi, the Chinese AI Startup Behind K2.6, Nears $20 Billion Valuation in New Funding Round
Kimi, the Chinese AI model developer also known as Moonshot AI, is putting the finishing touches on a $2 billion funding round that values the company at $20 billion. The deal underscores a surge of investor interest in homegrown AI startups capable of competing on a global stage, as the company’s flagship model K2.6 climbs to the top three most popular AI models worldwide by token usage, according to OpenRouter.
Founded in 2023 by Yang Zhilin—a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia alum—the startup is raising the fresh capital from a group led by Long-Z Investments, the venture capital arm of Chinese billionaire Wang Xing’s local services giant Meituan, according to local media LatePost and two individuals familiar with the matter. Additional participants include Chinese alternative asset manager CPE and an investment arm of state-owned telecom giant China Mobile.
The company declined to comment. Kimi, valued at $4.3 billion late last year, has seen its valuation more than quadruple as investors bet on its rapid technological advances. Before this round, it had already raised nearly $2 billion in 2025 alone from backers including Alibaba, Tencent, and 5Y Capital (run by Forbes Midas lister Richard Liu), one of the sources said. The company currently has no immediate plans for an initial public offering, the second source added.
Kimi needs the capital to sustain its research amid fierce competition in China’s AI sector. Publicly listed rivals MiniMax and Zhipu are releasing new models at a breakneck pace, each iteration touting improved coding, reasoning, and research capabilities. Kimi, for its part, released K2.6 in late April—an open-source model designed to handle complex coding tasks. That same month, Yang met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, a sign of the government’s push to accelerate AI development.
K2.6 now ranks among the world’s top three most popular AI models based on token usage, a metric that measures data processing volume, according to OpenRouter. Its predecessor, K2.5, released in January, counts San Francisco-based AI coding startup Cursor as a customer.
Kimi is not the only Chinese AI developer racing to raise funds as research costs soar. DeepSeek, which released preview versions of its long-awaited V4 models in April, is widely reported to be negotiating its first external funding round at a valuation exceeding $45 billion. Since their release, the V4 models have entered the global top ten most popular AI models by token usage, per OpenRouter.
Industry Reactions:
“This valuation jump from $4.3 billion to $20 billion in less than a year is insane, but it shows how hungry the market is for AI that actually works,” said Li Wei, a 34-year-old AI engineer based in Shenzhen. “K2.6 is genuinely impressive, but I worry about the hype cycle. If the next model doesn’t blow everyone away, the correction will be brutal.”
“Kimi’s rise is a testament to China’s ability to produce world-class AI talent and products,” said Dr. Zhang Mei, a 45-year-old tech analyst at a Beijing-based research firm. “The government’s backing and the sheer scale of capital deployment mean we’re likely to see more Chinese models in the global top five within the next year.”
“Another billion-dollar AI company that still hasn’t turned a profit? Great. Just what we needed,” said Chen Yifan, a 28-year-old former tech journalist turned startup founder. “I’m not saying Kimi isn’t good—it is. But the valuation game is getting ridiculous. At some point, these companies need to show they can make money, not just burn it.”
This article was originally published on Forbes.com and has been adapted for style.