Chinese artificial intelligence developer Moonshot AI has raised USD 3.5 billion in its latest funding round, lifting its valuation to USD 35 billion, as first reported by Bloomberg.

Moonshot entered the round at a pre-money valuation of USD 31.5 billion and initially sought to raise USD 1–2 billion, according to reports. China’s National AI Industry Investment Fund was said to be among the lead investors.

The company has also begun planning a pre-IPO round and approaching potential investors. It is seeking to complete the round at a pre-money valuation of USD 50 billion.

Moonshot could list in Hong Kong as early as this year. It began preparing for a Hong Kong IPO early this year, with China International Capital Corporation and Goldman Sachs serving as joint underwriters.

The company reportedly notified shareholders in May that it had begun dismantling its variable interest entity (VIE) and red-chip structures, removing potential obstacles to a Hong Kong listing. It may have targeted July for completion of the process.

Moonshot has a diverse shareholder base. Its investors include Chinese internet companies Alibaba Group, Tencent, and Meituan; venture capital firms HSG, IDG Capital, Capital Today, 5Y Capital, Gaorong Ventures, and YF Capital; and strategic investors such as China Mobile, Andon Health, and 37 Interactive Entertainment.

At the USD 50 billion pre-money valuation it is seeking for the pre-IPO round, Moonshot would be valued at more than ten times the USD 4.3 billion recorded during its Series C round in 2025.

The higher valuation has coincided with rapid revenue growth. Moonshot’s annual recurring revenue had exceeded USD 300 million by July, while API sales accounted for more than 70% of total revenue and had become its main growth driver.

Moonshot released its latest large model, Kimi K3, on July 17. The launch attracted attention across the global technology sector and may have contributed to the company’s higher valuation expectations.

Daily sales increased sixfold after the model’s release, according to reports. As demand exceeded expectations and placed greater pressure on Kimi’s computing capacity, Moonshot announced on July 19 that it would immediately suspend subscriptions for new consumer users. It released Kimi K3 as an open-source model on July 27.

According to Moonshot, Kimi K3 has 2.8 trillion parameters, native visual understanding, and a context window of up to one million tokens. The company described it as the world’s first open-source model in the three-trillion-parameter class and said it was designed for advanced artificial intelligence applications, including long-horizon coding, knowledge work, and reasoning.

Moonshot said Kimi K3’s overall performance still trailed the strongest proprietary models, Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol. However, it said the model demonstrated frontier-level capabilities across its evaluation suite and outperformed every other model tested.

This article was adapted based on a feature originally written by SY and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.