Two of China's most prominent artificial intelligence developers are moving closer to public markets, with Moonshot AI preparing a Hong Kong listing and rival DeepSeek attracting far more investment than initially sought.
Beijing-based Moonshot AI, the company behind the Kimi chatbot, has completed its final private funding round at a valuation of roughly $50 billion (€44.6 billion), up from $31.5 billion (€28.1 billion) in a round this summer, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is now targeting an initial public offering in Hong Kong in the first quarter of 2027, which could raise up to $5 billion (€4.46 billion), though the timeline may shift.
Moonshot has begun organising early investor meetings to gauge demand, potentially starting this month. Bank of America is coordinating the deal, with China International Capital Corp, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs acting as sponsors, according to Bloomberg.
The company's annual recurring revenue has climbed from $300 million (€268 million) in June to about $1 billion (€892 million) and is expected to reach $2 billion (€1.78 billion) by December. Founded in early 2023 by Yang Zhilin, a Tsinghua University graduate who previously worked at Meta AI and Google Brain, Moonshot has backing from Alibaba and Tencent. Its Kimi K3 open model drew global attention in July.
DeepSeek's bumper funding round
Hangzhou-based DeepSeek is close to securing at least 80 billion yuan (€10.6 billion) in a funding round with Tencent and battery maker CATL among the largest investors. Strong demand could push the total towards 100 billion yuan (€13.3 billion), double the roughly 50 billion yuan (€6.66 billion) the startup initially sought. DeepSeek, which until this year relied mainly on money from founder Liang Wenfeng's hedge fund High-Flyer, had reportedly targeted a valuation of about 500 billion yuan (€66.5 billion) for the round.
DeepSeek's low-cost R1 model rattled global markets in January 2025, wiping almost $600 billion (€535 billion) off Nvidia's market value in a single day. Since then, the company has released its V4 models, adding a faster V4.1-Flash version in September. It has also teamed up with Huawei to develop programming tools for the Chinese tech group's Ascend AI chips, as Beijing pushes to reduce reliance on Nvidia.
Both companies are being investigated by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's internet regulator, over whether they routed sensitive user data to Claude, the chatbot of US firm Anthropic. Anthropic has accused them of using its model to train their own. The probe's impact on their IPO plans remains unclear.
DeepSeek has hired Chinese brokerage CITIC Securities to prepare for a potential listing on Shanghai's STAR Market, though the timing, valuation and size of any offering have yet to be confirmed publicly.
If Moonshot's IPO goes ahead next year, it would become the latest Chinese AI developer to tap Hong Kong investors, after rivals Zhipu and MiniMax listed in January, with MiniMax's shares more than doubling on their first day of trading. The moves come as Chinese tech companies increasingly look to public markets to fund their AI ambitions, a trend with implications for global investors and European chipmakers alike.
