Moonshot AI has filed confidentially for a Hong Kong listing. Photo supplied.
Key points
- Moonshot weighing a $3B to $5B Hong Kong IPO
- Bloomberg: Bank of America is overall coordinator
- Alibaba and Tencent both back the company
Moonshot AI is considering raising $3 billion to $5 billion in a Hong Kong initial public offering as soon as this year, Bloomberg reported on September 4, citing people familiar with the matter. The Beijing company behind the Kimi chatbot has filed confidentially for the share sale and added Bank of America as overall coordinator, alongside sponsor banks CICC, Deutsche Bank, and Goldman Sachs.
Bloomberg's sources said the size and timing could still change. A separate report on the filing put the target at $3 billion and named Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and CICC as working on the deal, without citing an overall coordinator. Moonshot said the company had no comment on the report and no information to disclose, according to TechNode, which cited Hong Kong outlet HK01.
Bloomberg also reported that Moonshot was valued at $35 billion after closing a $3.5 billion funding round, and is separately approaching backers for a round at a $50 billion pre-money valuation.
A raise of $3 billion to $5 billion on top of a $50 billion pre-money valuation works out to about 5.7% to 9.1% of the company after the money, before any secondary shares or overallotment.
Moonshot released Kimi K3 on July 17 and paused new sign-ups on July 19, after a surge in demand overwhelmed the company's computing capacity, Caixin reported. Annualized recurring revenue reached $300 million in June, and Moonshot's post-money valuation was $20 billion in mid-March. K3 is a 2.8 trillion-parameter model and the largest open-weight model released to date.
Who backs Moonshot
Alibaba (BABA) led a $1 billion round in February 2024 that valued Moonshot at $2.5 billion, taking a stake reported at about 36% at the time. Tencent (TCEHY) is also a backer, along with IDG Capital, HongShan, and Gaorong Capital. Neither Alibaba nor Tencent has disclosed a current ownership percentage, and published accounts of Moonshot's later rounds disagree on their size and timing.
Hong Kong has become the leading venue for Chinese AI listings
Zhipu AI listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 8, raising HK$4.17 billion, or about $558 million. Retail investors oversubscribed the offering 1,159 times, and the shares traded at a valuation of about HK$55.5 billion on debut, up 8.43% at HK$126 against an offer price of HK$116.20, Caixin reported.
AI chip designer Biren Technology priced 284.8 million shares at HK$19.60 in early January, raising HK$5.58 billion, or about $717 million on those offering terms. The stock closed its first day at HK$34.46, up 76%.
Twelve AI-related companies listed in Hong Kong across December 2025 and January 2026, raising $4.9 billion between them, according to HKEX. IPO fundraising on the exchange reached $3.7 billion by January 23, against $0.8 billion for all of January 2025. About 20 more AI companies sit in the listings pipeline.
Zhipu reported a net loss of 2.36 billion yuan, about $330 million, in the first half of 2025. Research and development spending ran to 1.59 billion yuan, eight times its revenue for the period. Zhipu chairman Liu Debing said "profitability is not a priority; the focus is on advancing AGI."
