Vol.04 Yunqi Capital's Chen Yu: First to Bet on MiniMax, Behind the Scenes of LLM Investing | Crossover with *Zhang Xiaojun Jùn | Business Talk*

Vol.04 Yunqi Capital's Chen Yu: First to Bet on MiniMax, Behind the Scenes of LLM Investing | Crossover with *Zhang Xiaojun Jùn | Business Talk*

June 13, 2024

Generative AI has been boiling over for more than a year now, and China's large model startup track has just a handful of main contenders. MiniMax, a Yunqi Capital angel-round portfolio company, is one of them. This company set its sights on multimodal large models before ChatGPT went viral, and is currently one of the highest-valued startups in its space. Its model and product moves are also seen as a window into observing the domestic large model landscape.

As the first angel investor to back MiniMax, Yunqi Capital partner Chen Yu recently sat down with Zhang Xiaojun to share the story behind the investment, and to discuss real questions like the differences between Chinese and American AI venture capital, and where China's large model landscape is headed.

The new episode of Yunqi's podcast Attent!on crosses over with Zhang Xiaojun Jùn | Business Interview, and we're sharing it with you here.

Guests on This Episode

  • Chen Yu, Partner at Yunqi Capital, angel investor in MiniMax
  • Zhang Xiaojun, Producer of the podcast Zhang Xiaojun Jùn | Business Interview

Timeline

GenAI Conference

  • 02:16 Chen Yu's self-introduction
  • 03:09 Silicon Valley observations
  • 04:42 What are the current differences between Chinese and American AI venture capital environments?
  • 11:00 American and Chinese AI startup directions aren't vastly different overall — software dominates

AI's Evolution Over the Past 10 Years

  • 12:38 How AI has evolved over the past decade, in both technology and investment
  • 13:42 Three waves of AI application: computer vision (which gave rise to the "Four AI Tigers"), autonomous driving (the difficulty of L4 deployment), and large models
  • 20:51 The several distinct phases after going all-in on large models at the end of 2022

The MiniMax Backstory

  • 25:16 The story behind being the first investor to back MiniMax
  • 30:14 Founder Junjie Yan's codename is "IO" (Input/Output) — I took a liking to him after one meeting
  • 38:02 MiniMax's technology, application, and product iterations (digital humans — Glow — Hailuo AI, STARFIELD, etc.)
  • 39:52 On Junjie Yan, Yunyang Yi, and the team?
  • 42:50 How to view the large model price wars triggered by tech giants, and their impact on startups

The Poker Cards of Large Models

  • 46:07 The players: tech giants hold the most chips, followed by funding-leading startups
  • 48:02 The top priority for the remaining startups is fundraising
  • 48:51 Why is the Club Deal phenomenon so prominent in the large model wave?
  • 51:18 The qualification line for the six large model startups this year
  • 53:39 Tech giants' large model products vs. startups' products

Where Else to Find Us

View the episode transcript on Xiaoyuzhou.