Beijing-based Zhipu AI, one of China’s top large language model (LLM) startups, has pocketed 3 billion yuan ($411.8 million) in its latest funding round roping in state capital investors and strategic backers, whose names were not disclosed.
Existing shareholders including Legend Capital, which is affiliated with Legend Holdings, also re-upped in the fresh round, according to a release on Tuesday. The proceeds will help the firm further the R&D of its large language model GLM.
The investment comes three months after the firm secured an undisclosed investment at a pre-money valuation of 20 billion yuan ($2.85 billion), led by Beijing ZGC Science City Innovation Development.
Formally known as Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology, Zhipu AI is one of the ‘six tigers’ of LLMs in China, alongside Baichuan, 01.AI, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, and Stepfun.
Following the advent of OpenAI’s large language model GPT-3 in June 2020, the generative AI frenzy has since taken China by storm with local upstarts and big tech giants launching their large language models (LLMs).
As the LLM race continues to heat up in 2024, the firm launched its flagship language model GLM-4 in January, which has iterated into GLM-4-0520, a model that is suitable for handling highly complex and diverse tasks. GLM-4-Plus was another language model launched in August that tracks enhanced performance, especially in the areas of handling long texts, according to its website. The firm also rolled out CogVideox, its answer to OpenAI’s text-to-video service Sora, in July.
The Beijing-based firm tracked a 100% growth in its revenue in 2024 compared with 2023, as per a release. The revenue growth was largely driven by its Model as a Service (MaaS) platform, which enables enterprises to get access to the functions of Zhipu’s language models through calling APIs.
The firm claims that it has attracted over 700,000 businesses and developers for its to-business services; while its consumer-facing mobile applications Zhipu Qingyan boasts a base of 25 million users, hitting an annual recurring revenue of over 10 million yuan ($1.4 billion).
Founded in 2019, the firm has a presence across the US, UK, France, Singapore, and Malaysia, according to the release. Most recently, Zhipu held the first close of a venture capital (VC) fund in November, which targets to raise 1.5 billion yuan ($210.6 million) to invest in early-stage LLM startups.
The firm counts several VCs and local tech giants among its backers including the likes of Qiming Venture Partners, Tencent Holdings, Meituan, Xiaomi Corp, and Alibaba Group.
