{"id":246328,"date":"2026-01-19T14:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/246328\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T14:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:44:08","slug":"alibaba-backed-startup-moonshot-ai-valuation-up-500-million-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/246328\/","title":{"rendered":"Alibaba-backed startup Moonshot AI valuation up $500 million: sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pictured here is Moonshot AI’s Kimi chatbot displayed on a smartphone.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n

BEIJING \u2014 An\u00a0Alibaba<\/a>-backed AI startup is currently being valued at $4.8 billion in a fresh funding round, two people with knowledge of the deal said, just weeks after it was valued at $4.3 billion.<\/p>\n

Moonshot AI is the company behind the\u00a0Kimi chatbot<\/a>, which surged in popularity in China months before DeepSeek’s release last year.<\/p>\n

Since Moonshot’s previous in December, rival Chinese AI companies \u2014\u00a0Zhipu<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0MiniMax<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 surged after\u00a0going public in Hong Kong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The sources told CNBC that Moonshot was closing a funding round that will value it at least $500 million\u00a0higher than the December round.\u00a0The sources said the round would likely close soon due to high demand.<\/p>\n

Both asked to remain anonymous while discussing private information. Moonshot AI had not responded to a request for comment as this article went live.<\/p>\n

The sources added that the company could be valued even higher in subsequent rounds that could follow, due to a surge of interest in Chinese AI IPO candidates.<\/p>\n

Chinese AI companies have particularly boomed as U.S. AI chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, aren’t officially available in mainland China.<\/p>\n

Beijing restricts access to many U.S.-based internet services, while American companies have faced growing restrictions from the White House on doing business with China.<\/p>\n

The previous funding round was announced on Dec. 31. IDG, Alibaba and Tencent participated in\u00a0it, according to Chinese financial news outlet LatePost.<\/p>\n

Moonshot AI has not commented on any plans for an IPO.<\/p>\n

Zhipu, listed under the name Knowledge Atlas, had a market value of $13 billion as of Monday’s close, according to Wind Information data. MiniMax was worth $15.2 billion, the data showed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tSubscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pictured here is Moonshot AI’s Kimi chatbot displayed on a smartphone. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images BEIJING…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,15464,343,344,354,357,85,46,124026,20590,190,1760,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-246328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-alibaba-group-holding-ltd","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-breaking-news-technology","13":"tag-business-news","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-knowledge-atlas-technology-jsc-ltd","17":"tag-market-insider","18":"tag-markets","19":"tag-stock-markets","20":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}