Four Chinese generative artificial intelligence start-ups have recently joined the ranks of unicorns, collectively achieving valuations ranging from $1.2 billion to $2.5 billion. These companies—Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, and 01.ai—are spearheading the push to match the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.
Zhipu AI has reached a valuation of $2.5 billion following its latest fundraising round in March. With significant backing from major players such as Alibaba Cloud, Tencent, and Xiaomi, Zhipu AI has developed the Qingyan AI assistant, which serves professional sectors like banking and insurance, and the AiU avatar chatbot for consumer entertainment.
Moonshot AI, also valued at $2.5 billion, announced a substantial $1 billion funding round in February, led by Alibaba. Backed by investors including Xiaohongshu and Meituan, is making waves with its Kimi chatbot, which compresses long form text to optimise search.
MiniMax has quickly risen to a valuation of $2.5 billion following a $600 million funding round in March. It is backed by Alibaba, Tencent, and Hillhouse, among others. The company focuses on AI avatar chatbots aimed at both domestic and international markets.
01.ai stands at a valuation of $1.2 billion as per its most recent funding activity. The company specialises in open-source foundational large language models, AI chatbots, and productivity
tools tailored for enterprise use.
