Plaud, a maker of artificial intelligence-powered recording cards, is said to have raised funding from Tencent in mid-2025 at a valuation of USD 1 billion, according to information seen by 36Kr. Plaud’s valuation has since risen to around USD 2 billion. The Chinese media outlet also learned from people familiar with the matter that Plaud is advancing hardware collaboration with Tencent Meeting.
36Kr sought comment from Plaud and Tencent on the information above. Both parties said the claims were untrue.
A person close to Plaud told 36Kr that the company generated about USD 56 million in revenue in 2024, with a profit margin close to 20%. “Revenue in 2025 roughly tripled,” the person said. Another person familiar with the matter said Plaud’s full-year revenue in 2025 reached a record high, while shipments of its full product lineup in the Chinese mainland met internal expectations.
But Plaud’s shipment volume appears limited. One industry source told 36Kr that its sales in China’s domestic market may not have exceeded 100,000 units. Plaud appears to be struggling to replicate in China the growth it has enjoyed overseas over the past few years.
Plaud’s rise came as it caught the wave of AI recording hardware triggered by ChatGPT. In 2023, the inability of iPhones in overseas markets to provide call recording created a pain point that helped the Plaud Note quickly break out. The device is 2.9 millimeters thick, supports magnetic charging, and integrates a multi-microphone array. After connecting to large language models, it can provide real-time transcription in dozens of languages, generate meeting minutes, and perform multilingual translation, addressing overseas users’ need to record calls and meetings.
Plaud’s overseas business then entered a period of rapid growth, quickly pushing the company into unicorn territory. Official data shows that, as of July 2025, Plaud’s global sales had surpassed one million units, while its pioneering AI recording products had grown tenfold in each of the previous two years. In a Forbes interview in September of the same year, Plaud co-founder Nathan Xu also said the company’s 2025 revenue was expected to reach USD 250 million.
Behind that growth were the natural advantages of overseas markets and a first-mover edge. “Plaud was able to take off early on because it seized the first-mover window for a single form factor. At the time, no one else was making a recording device that was this thin and light, could magnetically attach to a phone, and integrated large language models. Overseas users had no alternative,” the head of a leading AI hardware company told 36Kr.
Riding on its overseas brand momentum, Plaud began laying out its China strategy. People familiar with the matter told 36Kr that Plaud began preparing its mainland China business as early as the beginning of 2025, initially choosing to enter through the medical and financial sectors and using professional B2B services as its landing point.
In September 2025, Plaud released three products for consumer users in the Chinese mainland: Plaud Note, NotePin S, and Note Pro. They were priced at RMB 1,149, (USD 168.7) RMB 1,249, (USD 183.4) and RMB 1,299, (USD 190.8) respectively.
Plaud’s overall pricing is higher than that of similar domestic competitors, but its core functions show limited differentiation. After entering the Chinese mainland, Plaud’s overseas brand and supply chain advantages have become less effective, and its development bottlenecks have gradually become more apparent. “A mature supply chain system means the cost of replicating the product in China will be very low. The Chinese market will be much more competitive,” a former Plaud employee told 36Kr.
From a hardware perspective, Plaud’s moat is thin. Its form factor is easy to copy, and its core magnetic card-style design does not present a particularly high engineering barrier. Relying on China’s mature audio hardware supply chain, rival manufacturers can quickly replicate the product’s appearance while catching up, or even pulling ahead, in miniaturization, noise-reducing audio capture, and hardware tuning.
Even after Plaud introduced new form factors, such as NotePin, the changes were largely limited to appearance and wearing style. They have not necessarily been viewed as substantial innovations, nor have they extended the product into more diverse recording scenarios such as daily life and entertainment. That makes it harder to spur repeat purchases or replacement demand.
Then there is software. Plaud’s AI functions are not exclusive, leaving it vulnerable to homogenization. Core capabilities such as real-time transcription, meeting summaries, and multilingual translation are built on the open capabilities of general-purpose large language models, making it difficult to form proprietary underlying technology.
“AI gave Plaud the dividend that allowed it to take off, but it failed to build its own technical moat,” one industry insider told 36Kr. “For simple recording, transcription, and summarization functions, given the pace at which domestic apps and large language models iterate, similar functions can quickly be replicated and commoditized. So far, that has indeed been the case.”
More importantly, workplace ecosystem giants have entered the market with strong platform advantages, putting direct pressure on startups like Plaud. In August 2025, DingTalk released the DingTalk A1 recording card. In January this year, Anker Innovations and ByteDance jointly launched an AI recording device, further intensifying competition.
Plaud has long been focused on office work and call recording, areas where workplace platforms such as DingTalk and Feishu, known internationally as Lark, already have strong footholds. Enterprise users already rely heavily on DingTalk and Feishu for workplace collaboration. These platforms natively provide meeting recording, AI-generated meeting notes, and document-related capabilities, reducing the need for separate hardware and diverting part of Plaud’s core customer base.
Competition is also growing as technology companies such as Dreame and Mobvoi launch products with similar form factors. To survive in the domestic market, Plaud may need to rely on a major platform company and build stronger model capabilities of its own.
Tencent, meanwhile, may also need a hardware foothold if it wants to participate more deeply in smart hardware.
One person familiar with the matter told 36Kr that Tencent Meeting and WeCom had previously set up hardware project teams to explore integration with devices such as phones and watches. “Tencent will not give up the hardware entry point,” the person said.
Another reason Tencent may be moving more quickly into hardware is that growth in office software is gradually hitting a ceiling.
One industry insider said that even though Tencent Meeting’s revenue has grown severalfold over the past two years, the company’s internal assessment of the market is that “the AI-driven software growth dividend will disappear soon, and hardware will be the new growth curve,” according to 36Kr.
“Tencent Meeting thought about this very early on. Since Tencent Meeting is positioned as a meeting tool, its ultimate form should not only cover online meetings, but also offline meetings,” the person said. “At present, the best way to cover offline scenarios is through hardware, especially voice recorders that match users’ habits for taking meeting minutes.”
Tencent said the information above was untrue.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Huang Nan and Zhou Xinyu for 36Kr.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.81 = USD 1 based on estimates as of May 12, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.