Kimi, the Chinese AI model startup also known as Moonshot AI, is closing a $2 billion funding round at a valuation of $20 billion, as investors pile into the developer of some of the world’s most popular AI models amid the company’s rapid technological advances.

Founded in 2023 by Yang Zhilin , a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia alum, the upstart is raising the funds from investors led by Long-Z Investments, the venture capital arm of Chinese billionaire Wang Xing ’s local services giant Meituan, according to local media LatePost and two people with knowledge of the deal. Other investors participating in the round include Chinese alternative asset manager CPE and an investment arm of Chinese telecommunications giant China Mobile.

The company didn’t respond to a request for comment. Kimi, which was valued at $4.3 billion late last year, is seeing its valuation soar as investors bet on its potential. Before the latest round, it had already raised almost $2 billion so far this year from investors including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, gaming and social media behemoth Tencent, and investment firm 5Y Capital (managed by Forbes Midas lister Richard Liu ), according to one of the people. The company currently doesn’t have a timeline for an initial public offering, the second person said.

Kimi needs capital to fund its research amid cut-throat competition in the AI space. Its Hong Kong-listed peers MiniMax and Zhipu are releasing new models rapidly, with each iteration touting improved capabilities in coding, reasoning and research. The privately held company, on its part, released Kimi K2.6 in late April, an open-source model capable of executing complex coding tasks. Yang met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing in the same month, as the country’s leadership urges faster development of AI-related technologies.

K2.6 now ranks among the world’s top three most popular AI models based on token usage, a measurement of the amount of data processed, according to OpenRouter, a platform that helps developers access different AI models. K2.5, Kimi’s previous flagship model released in January, counts San Francisco-based AI coding company Cursor as a customer.

The company isn’t the only Chinese AI model developer racing to tap investors as research costs soar. DeepSeek, which also released in April preview versions of its long-awaited V4 models, is widely reported to be negotiating its maiden external funding round at a valuation of over $45 billion. Since their release, the V4 models rank among the world’s top ten most popular AI models based on token usage, according to OpenRouter.