5Y News | Portfolio Company Xiaoice Announces RMB 1 Billion New Funding Round
A full upgrade of the digital employee product line.
Xiaoice recently announced it has completed a new funding round totaling RMB 1 billion. The proceeds will accelerate R&D on the Xiaoice Framework for AI Beings and drive broader adoption of digital employees. 5Y Capital previously led the company's Series A round.
Additionally, Xiaoice announced an annual upgrade to its AI Being Employee product line. The enhancements include large-model conversational engines, 3D neural network rendering, hyper-natural voice synthesis, and AIGC (AI-generated content). Several of these technologies have already been deployed in advance through recent digital employee launches including "Zhao Xiaoying" for China Merchants Group and "Guan Jun," the Winter Olympics digital coach. Xiaoice plans to complete upgrades for all 300,000 digital employees currently running on the Xiaoice Framework within the next quarter, further solidifying its global leadership in the digital employee market.
Xiaoice originated as the Microsoft AI Xiaoice team before spinning out as an independent R&D entity in 2020, achieving full localization. The Xiaoice Framework is the most widely deployed and comprehensive AI Being infrastructure globally, covering 660 million online users, 1 billion third-party smart devices, and 900 million content viewers across China, Japan, Indonesia, and other markets. Its commercial client base spans the globe, with penetration exceeding 60% in the smart vehicle cockpit sector. Its AIGC commercialization has also been widely applied across verticals including finance, culture, textiles, and tourism.
"Foundational AI research is a long-distance race built on years of accumulated effort," said Xiaoice CEO Di Li. "From the 2013 launch of our affective computing project to today, nearly a decade of framework-level technical investment has given Xiaoice increasing confidence in our commercialization path. We're excited to see AI Beings entering an era of accelerated adoption. Yet today's innovations remain trivial compared to what lies ahead. That's precisely what makes innovation so thrilling. We will continue increasing R&D investment and exploring the future."
5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires founders who dare to be different, providing support that ranges from the spiritual to full operational backing. We believe that if the "crazy" person others see in you begins to be believed in, the world will become a different place.
BEIJING · SHANGHAI · SHENZHEN · HONG KONG
