Chinese Startup Moonshot AI Valued at $20 Billion After Fresh Funding

Moonshot AI, founded in 2023 by ex-Meta and Google researcher Yang Zhilin, raised $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation, led by Meituan. The valuation—eight times higher than two years ago—ranks its Kimi chatbot among the world's most valuable private AI companies, alongside OpenAI and Anthropic. The funding reflects investor confidence in China's domestic language model sector as Western AI access faces geopolitical pressure.