Startup completes funding round, value could exceed $30 billion
issued Sunday, July 19, 2026 · 02:48 PM
MOONSHOT AI has seized the opportunity to tap capital markets and told investors it is preparing to go public within six months at the earliest, after its latest model upended industry perceptions of China’s burgeoning capabilities and spooked global tech stocks.
The Chinese AI pioneer has sought the blessings of its supporters for a Hong Kong listing and has formally distributed a shareholder resolution to investors, people familiar with the matter said. The start of the notification process indicates that an IPO could take place as early as six months.
Moonshot is currently closing on a funding round that could value the three-year-old startup at more than $30 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company just hit $300 million in annual recurring revenue (an indicator of future sales) in June, the company said, asking not to be identified discussing the private transaction. According to Bloomberg News, Moonshot achieved annual recurring revenue of US$200 million in April.
Moonshot was preparing to pull the trigger on its debut ahead of Kimi K3’s release on Friday (July 17). Kimi K3 is a more advanced open-class model that the company says outperforms all rivals except Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 in overall performance. Many observers were impressed by the open weight model’s capabilities and size (2.8 trillion parameters). This means users can download and customize its parameters.
The IPO is a milestone for the fast-growing startup co-founded in early 2023 by Yang Zhilin, a former Tsinghua University professor who worked at Metaplatform and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. The startup is called “Dark Side of the Moon” in Chinese, after Yang’s favorite Pink Floyd album.
The Beijing-based startup has begun considering a Hong Kong listing in early 2026 and is in talks with China International Capital and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to list, Bloomberg News reported. China’s PE Daily reported on Saturday about the possible timing of Moonshot’s listing.
China’s AI competition is evolving beyond competition based on price alone
Since its inception, the company has operated in the shadow of big-name companies such as DeepSeek, which took Silicon Valley by storm with its powerful 2025 model. But the company remains at the forefront of China’s industrial development, alongside active research institutes such as Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen, MiniMax Group and Z.AI.
Moonshot has begun the process of dismantling its so-called “red chip” structure, a requirement for a smoother overseas listing process. Moonshot representatives did not respond to requests for comment outside of normal business hours.
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The startup’s rise highlights how rapidly China’s AI competition is evolving beyond competition on price alone. Artificial analysis has helped the Kimi K3 rank higher than Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 in several Frontier benchmarks, making it the first Chinese openweight model to achieve that milestone.
The Kim K3’s price is around Anthropic Sonnet levels, indicating that Moonshot believes it can be more expensive than other Chinese models considering the product’s features.
The company sells tiered subscription plans for chatbots and provides the underlying technology to enterprise customers. The company recently launched a general-purpose AI agent called “Kimi Work.” Overall, the company’s operations remain small compared to the likes of Z.AI, which is aiming for US$1 billion in annual sales.
Moonshots are racing for market as the Chinese government ramps up support for domestic AI development as President Xi Jinping praises China’s advances in low-cost AI but calls for a more open global technological order.
DeepSeek is raising a second round of funding from investors and planning an IPO in 2027, giving it a bigger war chest to develop and offer its AI services to the world at prices far lower than its U.S. competitors. bloomberg
