Alibaba Becomes Major Shareholder in 'China's OpenAI' Moonshot with 1 Trillion Won Investment

Holding 36% Stake... Rising as a Major Shareholder

Alibaba Group has become a major shareholder by holding a 36% stake in Moonshot, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup known as the 'Chinese version of OpenAI.'

According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in Hong Kong on the 25th, Alibaba stated in its annual report submitted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange the previous day that it invested approximately $800 million (about 1 trillion KRW) for around a 36% equity stake.

When converted to enterprise value, the investment amounts to about $2.2 billion, which is similar to the figure reported by local media in February.

At that time, it was reported that Moonshot was valued at $2.5 billion and was seeking to raise more than $1 billion in funding.

Moonshot is competing at the forefront of the Chinese AI startup sector alongside Zhipu AI, MiniMax, and 01.ai.

In particular, Moonshot's generative chatbot Kimi surpassed Baidu's Ernie Bot, the internet search giant in China, in terms of visitor numbers last month.