Moonshot AI, the Beijing-based developer of the Kimi chatbot, is seeking $2 billion in a new funding round at a $30 billion valuation — a seven-fold increase from its $4 billion valuation in December 2025. This is the company's third financing round in six months, bringing total fundraising to roughly $3.9 billion. Moonshot's ARR surpassed $200 million in April, doubling in under two months. The company is preparing for a Hong Kong IPO by restructuring its offshore VIE setup. China's AI startup landscape is consolidating rapidly, with DeepSeek seeking a $59 billion valuation and Zhipu AI at $80 billion, though all remain far behind US peers like OpenAI ($850B) and Anthropic ($965B). The aggressive fundraising pace reflects both the high cost of training frontier models under US chip export controls and the desire to maximize valuations before IPO windows open.
