China's "AI Tigers" are Growing Up

Baichuan, a Chinese AI startup, raised $687.6 million Series A

Hey Everyone,

Baichuan, a Chinese AI startup, raised $687.6 million Series A, led by Alibaba Group Holdings, Tencent, Xiaomi and Chinese state-backed funds.

This is one of the "Big Five" Generative AI startups out of China I'm especially watching. Founded in April 2023 by Wang Xiaochuan - founder and former CEO of Sogou. The round makes it the second biggest after Moonshot AI in terms of valuation for Gen AI startups in China.

About two months ago the company released Baichuan 4, the company introduced a dedicated digital assistant with the aim of turning its Baixiaoying chatbot app into a super app that can encompass all aspects of a person's digital life, a la Tencent's WeChat.

Emerging Chinese AI Startup and Generative AI Model Builders

• Moonshot AI (YueZhiAnMian)

• 01.AI

• Baichuan

• Minimax

• Zhipu AI

• Dark Side of the Moon

• DeepSeek

We know that Alibaba, Baidu and the likes of SenseTime are heavily involved in Generative AI research, but there are a lot of model builders and smaller AI startups in China in a fairly vibrant open-source ecosystem as of 2024.