Moonshot AI eyes dual Hong Kong, Shanghai IPO at $50 billion valuation

Beijing-based AI startup Moonshot is exploring a rare two-market listing strategy that could take the $50 billion company public in both Hong Kong and Shanghai, putting one of China’s most closely watched AI startups on a path to raise billions from investors.

Moonshot has discussed a Hong Kong IPO with its financial backers and raised the prospect of pursuing a mainland listing later, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter. The company is likely to target Shanghai’s STAR Market and could soon begin talks with the exchange, the report said.

“Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Moonshot AI, developer of the popular Kimi K3 model, may explore options for dual listings in Hong Kong and Shanghai in pursuit of greater capital and exposure,” SCMP reported.

The discussions add a new dimension to Moonshot’s IPO ambitions. Reuters reported last week that the Beijing startup had confidentially filed for a Hong Kong listing and was targeting a raise of about $3 billion, citing people familiar with the plans.

Moonshot is being valued at roughly $50 billion in an ongoing funding round, Reuters reported. At that valuation, a successful listing would turn the three-year-old startup into one of the biggest Chinese AI companies to reach the public markets.

The final size and timing remain unsettled. Moonshot still needs regulatory approvals, and market conditions could determine how much it ultimately raises.

A Shanghai listing could give the company another route to capital at a time when Hong Kong is dealing with a crowded IPO pipeline and uneven trading among recently listed AI companies. The STAR Market, formally known as the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board, has become an important venue for homegrown technology companies. Chinese robotics startup Unitree is among the companies pursuing plans to list there.

Moonshot would join a growing group of AI companies testing investors’ appetite for businesses that require enormous capital to train models, secure computing capacity, and compete for users.

China’s Z.AI, formerly known as Zhipu, and MiniMax have listed in Hong Kong this year. In the U.S., Anthropic is preparing for a possible offering by October. The activity marks a shift for an AI sector that has spent the past several years raising huge sums almost entirely through private markets.

For Moonshot, an IPO would arrive after an unusually steep ascent.

From Kimi K3 to a $50 billion AI company

Founded in 2023 by AI researcher Yang Zhilin, who pursued doctoral studies at Carnegie Mellon University, Moonshot has gone from a new entrant in China’s generative AI race to one of the country’s most valuable private technology companies in roughly three years.

Much of that rise has centered on Kimi, Moonshot’s family of AI models and consumer products.

The company released Kimi K3 in July, describing its 2.8 trillion parameters as making it the world’s largest open-weight model. The model has drawn strong demand, enough that Moonshot has said available computing capacity has come under pressure.

That demand may soon extend beyond China. Reuters previously reported that Moonshot is in talks with Microsoft, Amazon and Google over revenue-sharing agreements that would allow the U.S. cloud companies to host its model.

Those talks point to the larger story behind Moonshot’s IPO plans. The company is no longer fighting solely for a place in China’s AI market. It is trying to turn Kimi into a model business that can compete for developers, cloud distribution and capital globally.

A dual Hong Kong and Shanghai listing would give Moonshot something else its AI ambitions require in abundance: access to investors willing to finance the next stage of that race.