Moonshot AI, the Chinese startup behind the Kimi chatbot, is seeking a $10 billion valuation in a new funding round - more than double the $4.3 billion it raised just weeks ago in December. Existing backers Alibaba, Tencent, and 5Y Capital have already committed over $700 million to the first tranche.
The Numbers
The company closed a $500 million Series C round in December 2025 at a $4.3 billion valuation. Within a month, investor demand drove discussions for an expanded round that would more than double that figure. The speed of the valuation jump reflects both Moonshot’s operational performance and broader investor urgency around Chinese AI.
Yang Zhilin, who founded Moonshot in 2023 after leaving Google DeepMind, has built a company that now processes 100 billion tokens daily through its Mooncake serving platform. Between September and November 2025, Moonshot reported a 170% month-over-month jump in paying users globally.
Why Investors Are Piling In
The Kimi K2.5 model, released in late January, has become one of the most-used large language models on OpenRouter, ranking ahead of DeepSeek and Google Gemini on the platform. The 1-trillion-parameter model scored 50.2% on Humanity’s Last Exam, beating GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3 Pro on that benchmark.
Unlike ByteDance’s closed Doubao models, Kimi K2.5 is available as open weights - meaning anyone can deploy it without routing data through Moonshot’s servers. That distinction matters for enterprise customers and developers outside China concerned about data residency.
The Broader Context
The funding comes during a concentrated wave of Chinese AI activity. Five major model releases landed before Lunar New Year, and Chinese tech giants spent billions acquiring users through holiday campaigns. Moonshot’s rapid valuation growth suggests investors see it as a leader in that field.
This also positions Moonshot differently than DeepSeek, which disrupted the market a year ago but has been notably quiet this cycle. Moonshot is capturing the investor attention that might otherwise have gone to its rival.
What to Watch
The $10 billion target would place Moonshot among the most valuable AI startups globally - though still well below Anthropic ($380 billion), OpenAI, or xAI. Whether it can sustain growth after the Lunar New Year marketing surge will determine if that valuation holds.
For the broader industry, the speed of this round is a signal: Chinese AI companies are not slowing down despite US chip export controls. The capital is there, the models are competitive, and the user numbers are real.