Chinese AI Lab Moonshot Secures $2 Billion as Open-Source Models Gain Traction

Chinese AI companies may not have the same cash reserves as their U. S. counterparts, but their open-source models are attracting serious interest from businesses seeking low-cost inference. Investors are paying attention.

Moonshot AI, the Beijing-based lab behind the popular Kimi series of open-weight large language models, has raised approximately $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation, according to Huafeng Capital, which advised investors in the round. The funding was led by Long-Z Investment, the venture arm of food delivery giant Meituan, with participation from Tsinghua Capital, China Mobile, and CPE Yuanfeng. Over the past six months, Moonshot has raised $3. 9 billion, with its valuation climbing from $4.

3 billion at the end of 2025 to $10 billion after a $700 million raise in early 2026. Founded in 2023 by former Meta AI and Google Brain researcher Yang Zhilin, Moonshot gained prominence with its Kimi K2. 5 model, which nearly topped coding benchmarks and rivaled OpenAI and Anthropic’s performance. Its latest model, Kimi K2.

6, is now the second most-used LLM on OpenRouter. The company’s annual recurring revenue exceeded $200 million in April, fueled by subscription and API growth. The fundraising reflects surging investor appetite for open-weight Chinese AI models, as rivals like DeepSeek reportedly seek capital at a $45 billion valuation, and Zhipu AI and MiniMax have gone public with market caps exceeding $33 billion.

Source: TechCrunch