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Headlines · 12
- Mining tycoon Yu Yong puts 1.2B yuan into three AI funds linked to DeepSeek backers
On Oct 13, Dahua Technology said it would commit 500 million yuan of its own funds to the Ningbo Zhixing Yueheng venture fund, whose LP list shows Shanghai Shangju Industrial — a wholly owned unit of Hongshang Group — contributing 300 million yuan. The same evening, Hongshang-controlled China Molybdenum said it plans to commit 500 million yuan and 400 million yuan to Nanjing Yuanfeng Panmao and Hangzhou Hexie Chengzhang IV respectively, 900 million yuan across the two funds. The report says all three funds focus mainly on AI and are managed by Loyal Valley Capital, CPE and IDG Capital, all of which are DeepSeek investors; capital is to be paid in over five years for large-model development, hardware manufacturing and related applications. The two Hongshang-affiliated companies thus commit 1.2 billion yuan combined, with reclusive mining billionaire Yu Yong as ultimate controller — though the article notes this cannot be equated directly with an investment in DeepSeek.
钛媒体 · 🔥 0 - Tian Keyu AI lab's $200M valuation sparks founder-integrity debate
According to a 36Kr AI commentary, an AI lab founded by Tian Keyu has raised nearly $30 million at a $200 million post-money valuation despite having a 10-person team, no product and no public name; the article, citing Bloomberg, names 5Y Capital and IDG Capital as investors. Tian is the first author of a NeurIPS 2024 Best Paper and a central figure in ByteDance's so-called model-sabotage incident; a first-instance court ordered him to pay 500,000 yuan and return all internship pay, and ByteDance has appealed, so the case remains under second-instance review. The commentary argues that the market should not treat controversy-driven attention as a valuation asset, while noting that the competing accounts of the 2024 incident are both one-sided.
36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 0 - Tian Keyu accused of sabotaging ByteDance model training as colleagues publish evidence
On Oct 12, a dossier titled “Victim Statements and Evidence” was published with five named witnesses alleging that former ByteDance intern Tian Keyu interfered with model training for projects including Goku and LlamaGen between March and July 2024, by altering optimizer, data-sampling and distributed-communication code and restoring file timestamps. Tian has acknowledged misconduct but says he acted about five times over roughly ten days against one intern and rejects the “poisoning” characterization; ByteDance previously confirmed malicious interference and dismissed him, and a first-instance court found breach of contract and ordered 500,000 yuan in damages, with ByteDance appealing. Reports also say his world-model startup raised nearly $30 million from investors including 5Y Capital and IDG Capital at a roughly $200 million valuation, while the company has not disclosed its name or product; a Huxiu commentary examines ethics and trust in AI startups.
虎嗅 AI · 🔥 7 - MOSI raises over RMB 1 billion Pre-A round for real-time multimodal AI
Shanghai-based model company MOSI announced on October 12 that it has raised more than RMB 1 billion in a Pre-A round led by Huakong Fund, with participation from Guokai Venture Capital, Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Fund, Xinwei Capital, Xuhui Capital, Zhuiguang Hard Tech Ventures and Lingang Ceyuan Fund, while existing backers including Oriza Holdings, Shanghai Sci-Tech Group and Xinglian Capital reinvested; Duowei Capital is sole financial adviser. The company said the money will fund R&D in omni-modal real-time interaction intelligence and global commercialization. MOSI was incubated from the OpenMOSS team led by Fudan University professor Qiu Xipeng, which released MOSS, one of China's earliest open-source ChatGPT-style models, in February 2023; the company says it has shipped more than 20 speech, vision and multimodal models this year and has previewed MOSS Live, a system pairing a front-end interaction model with a back-end agentic model for AI glasses, cars, home devices and robots. The round comes about half a year after its angel round, led by IDG Capital.
智东西 · 🔥 0 - Moonshot AI in pre-IPO talks to settle 10.5% stake claim
Reuters reported on October 12 that Moonshot AI executives are negotiating a settlement with shareholder Recurrent.ai (Huanxiang Zhineng) and some of its investors, seeking to resolve before the company's Hong Kong listing a dispute that has gone to Hong Kong arbitration and dates back to 2024. Recurrent alleges that Moonshot CEO Yang Zhilin and CTO Zhang Yutao made misrepresentations, that servers holding key large language model data were moved without authorization from Recurrent to a Moonshot subsidiary in April 2023, and that other key data was deleted on Zhang's instructions in September 2024; Reuters said the letter provided no evidence and it could not independently verify the claims. The claimants seek compensation equal to 10.5% of Moonshot's original shares, which people familiar said could exceed $700 million based on the company's $30 billion valuation at its June funding, while Bloomberg reported a latest round at about $50 billion. Moonshot has confidentially filed for a Hong Kong IPO; Yang has denied the allegations, his lawyers say the case lacks legal and factual basis, and whether a settlement will be reached is unclear.
IT之家 AI · 🔥 0 - DeepSeek round reportedly doubles to ¥100B at ~¥500B pre-money valuation
Multiple Chinese outlets, citing unnamed people involved in the deal, report that DeepSeek's second funding round has grown from a planned ¥50 billion to about ¥100 billion, split roughly evenly between new and existing shareholders, with the pre-money valuation unchanged at around ¥500 billion. The reported new investors are mostly industrial players — Stone Capital, SMIC Capital, CPE, Legend Capital and Geely — while first-round backers CATL, Tencent, IDG Capital and others are said to be participating again, with CATL adding about ¥10 billion. CNBC's sources put the possible size as high as $15 billion, and reports also say DeepSeek has hired CITIC Securities to prepare a STAR Market listing, potentially filing as early as late 2026.
Recode China AI · 🔥 0 - Manus raises over $500M, reportedly at a $4B valuation
On October 8, Manus parent Butterfly Effect announced a new funding round of more than $500 million, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital with existing backers Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund participating; no valuation was disclosed, though Bloomberg previously reported a target of about $4 billion. It is Manus's first outside funding since it resumed independent operations on September 1, after Meta's acquisition was blocked by regulators in April and the founding team and investors bought the shares back at a $20 billion... correction: at a $20 billion figure was the buyback valuation reported by Bloomberg, with Tencent becoming the largest outside shareholder. On September 28 Manus released version 2.0 and a personal agent app, Cue; reports say its annualized revenue run rate has reached $400-500 million, though the revenue mix has not been disclosed.
钛媒体 · 🔥 0 - ByteDance AI drug spinout Anew Labs raises $290M angel round
Anew Labs, which spun out of ByteDance in June 2026, raised a $290 million angel round in September 2026 at a reported valuation of about 10 billion yuan, which the report calls China's first AI drug-discovery company to reach that valuation in a first round. Investors include Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Hillhouse Venture Capital, Five Source Capital, Gaorong Ventures, Primavera Venture Partners and Boyu Capital, with Sino Biopharmaceutical and the Shanghai Future Industry Fund joining as strategic investors; ByteDance remains the controlling shareholder and continues to supply Volcano Engine compute. The company has released biological AI models Protenix and PXDesign along with AnewMind, a scientific reasoning model for drug-development decisions, and lists four preclinical pipeline assets, with a lead oral small-molecule candidate it describes as the world's first to target both IL-17A and IL-17F, currently in preclinical lead optimization. Anew Labs said it is focused on R&D and declined an interview.
虎嗅 AI · 🔥 0 - Manus raises over $500M at reported $4B valuation after Meta deal collapse
According to a TMTPost article, Butterfly Effect, Manus's parent company, said in an Oct. 8 announcement that it closed a new funding round of more than $500 million, led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing backers Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund following on. No post-money valuation was disclosed; the article cites late-September media reports putting it at roughly $4 billion — about double the nearly $2 billion Meta had agreed to pay before that acquisition was halted and the company returned to independent operation on Sept. 1. The article also describes the Sept. 28 launch of Manus 2.0 and the Cue personal agent app, the building of a China-focused team with domestic model partners, and ARR said to have grown from $100 million in December 2025 to a $400–500 million range by end-June 2026 — figures that were not officially confirmed.
钛媒体 · 🔥 0 - Manus raises over $500M at ~$4B valuation, double its Meta-era price
Butterfly Effect, parent of Manus, said it closed a new round of more than $500 million led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing backers Tencent, HongShan and ZhenFund participating, at a valuation of about $4 billion — twice the $2 billion Meta had offered and the largest single round for a China-born agent startup. The funding follows Manus 2.0 on Sept. 28, which swapped its underlying agent execution framework for in-house Cascade, added a 24/7 cloud computer and event-triggered workflows, upgraded the desktop app into Manus Studio for video and game work, and launched Cue, which gives each agent its own email, phone number, wallet and computer. The report says ARR rose from $100 million in December 2025 to a $400–500 million range by end-June 2026, though that surge coincided with the seven months Manus operated inside Meta.
36氪 人工智能 · 🔥 0 - AI otome games lose ground as token costs outrun funding
Two heavily funded Chinese AI otome games, Xingmian (by Muyan Zhiyu) and Wuxiangu, opened their second beta tests last month; Xingmian raised nearly RMB 300 million across four 2024 rounds at a USD 120 million valuation, while Wuxiangu took over USD 10 million from ZhenFund and IDG Capital within half a year of founding. But the article says the sector has cooled: almost none of these studios train their own models, relying instead on Zhipu AI, DeepSeek and ChatGPT, so every extra free-form chat turn costs money upstream. EVE, the only AI otome game in official launch, drew backlash for offering just 10 free chat turns a day with monthly passes at RMB 68-328, sending its rating to 2.2, and the authors argue founders lack otome-game experience and staff far fewer people than Love and Deepspace's 300-person team.
虎嗅 AI · 🔥 0 - Manus parent Butterfly Effect raises over $500M at reported $4B valuation
Butterfly Effect, the parent of AI agent startup Manus, said on Oct. 8 it raised more than $500 million (~3.35 billion yuan) in a round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing backers Tencent, Sequoia China and ZhenFund joining. Bloomberg had reported the round at a roughly $4 billion valuation, double the prior $2 billion, and Chinese media called it the largest single round for a China-based agent-native startup. It is the company's first raise since Beijing forced Meta to unwind its roughly $2 billion acquisition, and follows the Sept. 29 release of Manus 2.0 and the multi-agent group chat app Cue; the company says its in-house Cascade framework cut token use 23.2%, task time 28.2% and running cost 32% in one test configuration.
智东西 · 🔥 0
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