Recently, sources indicate that the innovative company Moonshot is actively continuing its fundraising. It is reported that its latest round of financing has been valued at 3 billion USD. Insiders have revealed the addition of well-known enterprises and investment institutions to the new investment, such as Tencent, Gao Rong Venture Capital, etc. This signifies that Moonshot, as a leading large-scale model development company in China, has entered the club of companies valued over 20 billion RMB.

The launch of the new round of financing marks the successful conclusion of the previous capital raising. As early as February this year, Moonship had already completed a financing of more than 1 billion USD. This financing set a new milestone for large-scale model companies, with a valuation of 2.5 billion USD at the time. Initially, the financing was 800 million USD, led by Alibaba and Hillhouse Capital. Additionally, this round of funding also attracted many previous shareholders to increase their stakes, as well as some investment institutions that had not completed the process due to the timeframe overlapping the Spring Festival.

It is understood that the investors participating in this round of financing also include Source Code Capital, Five Sources Capital, Cloud Nine Capital, BlueRun Ventures, and several other venture capital institutions. Insiders in the investment community commented, "The current investor list of Moonshot has gathered over twenty investors, forming a formidable lineup," including but not limited to: Alibaba, Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia China, Today Capital, ZhenFund, Meituan Longzhu, Xiang He Capital, Xiaohongshu, China Merchants China Fund, FUNPLUS, Jiuan Medical, Shunwei Capital, BlueRun Ventures, Five Sources Capital, Cloud Nine Capital, Source Code Capital, Tencent, Gao Rong Venture Capital, etc.

Analysts believe that among these investors, Tencent's participation was quite unexpected. This is particularly so given that Alibaba was already a major shareholder with a high shareholding of 40%. Generally speaking, choosing to work with one tech giant often causes hesitation among others. Moreover, compared to Alibaba, Tencent doesn't seem to emphasize as much on cloud services.

Another insider revealed that at the end of last year, with restrictions on the gaming sector, Tencent made an internal decision to closely examine non-essential investments. In new investments, Tencent tends to prefer those that align with its strategic goals. Tencent has also made multiple investments in the past, involving companies such as Zhipu AI, Baichuan Intelligence, and MiniMax. Renowned tech media The information predicts that this investment may lead to further cooperation between WeChat and Moonshot in the area of chatbots.

Industry insiders commented that one of the reasons for Tencent's investment in the "dark side of the moon" may be the success of the voice assistant Kimi. The popularity of Kimi may have sparked Tencent's interest in the social domain and led to much discussion in the industry. Considering Tencent's past missed investment opportunities, they clearly do not intend to repeat the same mistakes.

At the same time, the lively round of financing also reflects the common mindset of many venture capitals and industrial funds—unwillingness to miss out on opportunities. A representative of the industrial capital pointed out that, in the current frenzy for large models, "the dark side of the moon" is one of the most likely projects to pass financing scrutiny. Many participants may already have personally experienced the demonstration of its technological prowess.

Currently, large model entrepreneurship has become a hot topic in the tech industry. It's like a storm, rapidly forming a consensus in the global tech sector and thus causing differentiation. Among those riding this wave are eager dollar venture capitalists and many listed companies, especially some well-known medium-sized domestic factories.

According to informed dollar fund investors, the range of new players joining the large model track is broad, including not only those dollar venture capitals and listed companies that increase their investments but also large state-owned capitals with a RMB background and some insurance funds. However, these institutions also face increasing challenges, such as whether more funds will continue to flow in the future and how the business models of large model companies will break through—these are tough issues that must be directly confronted and are currently shrouded in mystery.

Large model entrepreneurship is undoubtedly one of the most troubling business opportunities in history. As Zhu Xiaohu, managing partner of GSR Ventures, holds a relatively pessimistic view, compared to the previous generation of artificial intelligence companies like SenseTime, the new generation of large model companies faces even more severe challenges. The technological gap between them is not significant; each generation's technological iteration requires huge investments, which are growing exponentially. Moreover, if there is no viable business model, the monetization cycle of each generational technology may last only a short two to three years.

After OpenAI released GPT-4, Zhu Xiaohu expressed a new view on social networks, that is, model companies that have not formed deep ties with major factories are essentially out of the game. The market's dual attitude is also unmistakable, with one side eager to enter this track and the other choosing to watch with indifference. The coexistence of these two attitudes constitutes a unique landscape in China's large model hotspot.