Moonshot AI is preparing to launch a Hong Kong initial public offering within six months, according to Bloomberg, after the Chinese artificial intelligence startup formally sent a shareholder resolution to investors.
The company is also raising a new round of funding, and its valuation is expected to exceed $30 billion, the report said.
Kimi K3 drove demand and revenue higher
Moonshot AI drew fresh market attention after releasing Kimi K3, a new open-weight model. According to the report, demand jumped sharply within 48 hours of the launch, prompting the company to suspend new user subscriptions so it could prioritize compute resources for existing members.
Kimi K3 has 2.8 trillion parameters. The article said its overall capability was ranked behind only Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6. It also cited third-party evaluator Artificial Analysis, which said Kimi K3 beat Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 on some frontier benchmarks, making it the first Chinese open-weight model to reach that milestone.
On the commercial side, the report said daily sales increased by at least six times after the product launch. That helped lift Moonshot AI’s annual recurring revenue to $300 million in June 2026, up from $200 million in April.
IPO preparations have moved into a concrete stage
People familiar with the matter said the company had been studying a Hong Kong listing since early 2026 and had held talks with investment banks including China International Capital Corporation, or CICC, and Goldman Sachs.
With the shareholder resolution now issued, the company’s IPO process has moved into a more concrete stage, the report said. If things stay on track, the three-year-old startup could reach the capital markets within the next six months.
China’s AI market is shifting away from pure price competition
The report said Moonshot AI’s rise, together with Kimi K3’s pricing strategy, points to a broader change in China’s AI market. Kimi K3 is priced at a level comparable to Anthropic Sonnet, which the article described as a sign that customers are becoming more willing to pay for higher-end technical performance rather than focusing only on low prices.
The article also linked that backdrop to policy support. Beijing is stepping up support for domestic AI development, and Chinese President Xi Jinping recently praised the country’s progress in low-cost artificial intelligence while calling for a more open global technology order.
Competition from peers remains intense
Even so, Moonshot AI still trails peer Z.AI in revenue scale, according to the report. Z.AI, formerly known as Zhipu AI, is expected to reach $1 billion in annual sales.
The article also said DeepSeek, which rattled the market in 2025, is planning an IPO in 2027 and is still seeking new funding to expand its global market share. Moonshot AI, Alibaba’s Qwen, MiniMax and Z.AI were described as part of the top tier of Chinese AI companies whose product cycles and capital plans continue to reshape competition in the global AI industry.