Moonshot AI raises $2B as demand for open AI models keeps increasing

Beijing-based Moonshot AI has secured $2 billion in fresh funding at a $20 billion valuation as demand for open-weight models, which often trade performance for a lower cost in inference, accelerates globally. The round was led by Meituan's VC arm Long-Z Investments, with participation from Tsinghua Capital, China Mobile, and CPE Yuanfeng. The funding caps a remarkable six-month run where Moonshot raised $3.9 billion total, quintupling its valuation from $4.3 billion at the end of 2025.

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 earlier this year with performance approaching OpenAI and Anthropic's offerings. The company's latest model, Kimi K2.6, is currently the second-most-used LLM on distribution platform OpenRouter.

Moonshot's annual recurring revenue surpassed $200 million in April, driven by paid subscriptions and API usage. The company has held its own despite intense competition against US closed-source labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, and domestic rivals including DeepSeek, Alibaba, and MiniMax.