Zhilin Yang
杨植麟
Zhilin Yang is the founder and CEO of Moonshot AI, the Beijing-based company behind the Kimi AI assistant . A top-tier AI researcher, he was first author on the influential Transformer-XL and XLNet papers and previously worked at Meta and Google Brain . He launched Moonshot AI in 2023 with a focus on building a single,极致 AGI product rather than spreading across multiple offerings , and has steered Kimi to prominence partly through its long-context capabilities .
His trajectory has not been without conflict. In 2024, investors from his previous venture Recurrent AI — including Boyu Capital and Eminence Ventures — filed arbitration in Hong Kong alleging he and co-founder Yutao Zhang had started fundraising for Moonshot AI before securing formal release from their prior commitments . Yang publicly defended the move, stating his departure from Recurrent AI had received board approval and all necessary procedures . He has also been cast as a symbolic counterweight to investor Allen Zhu, who favors immediate commercialization over the technology-first bets Yang represents .
Most recently, Moonshot AI closed a $500 million Series C round led by IDG Capital in late 2025, with Alibaba, Tencent, and existing shareholders including Gaorong Ventures and 5Y Capital all oversubscribing . Yang's 2025 year-end letter set out ambitions for Kimi to become a distinctive large language model and for the company to pursue more aggressive GPU expansion and K3 model training . The firm has since released Kimi K2.5, a natively multimodal open-source model .
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Coverage
The Unforgettable Series C Funding of Moonshot AI
A stroke of genius.
elsewhere别处发生·"Undercover" at Moonshot AI: 100 Hours
Taste is all you need
Monolith砺思资本·New Forces Keep Coming｜5Y News Monthly
The big news from last month.
五源资本·The Fundraising Stories of China's "Six Little Tigers": Six Paths, Six Lives
If Kimi ever goes public, will the bell-ringing photo look very different?
elsewhere别处发生·Rongbao | Biren Technology and Seyond list successfully in Hong Kong, Moonshot AI completes major funding round
A new chapter begins.
高榕创投·5Y News｜Moonshot AI Closes $500 Million Series C Round, Aims to Become a World-Leading AGI Company
Moonshot AI will become an LLM that is "distinctive" and "undefinable."
五源资本·Moonshot AI Completes $500 Million New Funding Round, Zhilin Yang: Kimi Will Become a Distinctive LLM
"Become the world's leading AGI company."
高榕创投·New Year 2026 Conversation with Koji: The Year of R
真格基金·Monolith Raises $488 Million in New Funding
Assets under management exceed 10 billion RMB.
暗涌Waves·Are Models and "Shells" Both Undervalued? ZhenFund's Yusen Dai's Mid-2025 AI Review --- The past six months have been a turbulent period for AI. On one hand, DeepSeek's breakthrough has reignited global enthusiasm for Chinese AI; on the other, the commercialization path for large models remains unclear, and the market is growing increasingly anxious about when AI will generate real returns. Against this backdrop, I believe it's necessary to take stock of where we stand at this mid-point in 2025. **The Core Question: Are Models and "Shells" Both Undervalued?** Over the past two years, the AI industry has cycled through several narratives: from the initial frenzy over foundation models, to the subsequent boom in AI applications ("shells"), then a period of disillusionment as applications failed to deliver, and now a renewed focus on models following DeepSeek's success. But I want to propose a contrarian view: **both models and "shells" may be simultaneously undervalued by the market right now.** This might sound paradoxical. Let me explain. **Why Models Are Undervalued** The market's current skepticism toward model companies stems largely from two concerns: the commoditization of models (will they all become undifferent
In 2025, the "Sedol moment" for industries far and wide is only just beginning.
真格基金·Conversation with YouWare's Ming Chaoping: They're Skeptical That AI Coding Is a New Form of Creation — and I'm Thrilled | Z Talk
The promising AI product founder chose a path few others dared to take.
真格基金·ZhenFund's Yusen Dai: A Guide to Entrepreneurship, Investing, and AI for Young People
Abundant energy, an intense desire for success, and a fearless spirit of innovation.
真格基金·Elsewhere is looking for operations interns.
We're hiring.
暗涌Waves·Exclusive | Kimi Arbitration Settlement Fails, Zhang Yutong May Face Separate Lawsuit
The AI landscape has already shifted.
暗涌Waves·When Post-'90s Founders Cluster Into the Unicorn Club: A Look at China's New Unicorns in 2024
Forty-four companies made the list, with hard tech taking center stage.
真格基金·China's USD Funds Won't Disappear
Live long enough to long China.
暗涌Waves·ZhiLin Yang's Late-Night Response: Yutong Zhang, Kimi, and the Loop of Past Events
"Grateful to all our investors for supporting the entrepreneurial dream."
暗涌Waves·Exclusive | On the Kimi Case, Allen Zhu Spoke With Us for 20,000 Words Straight
On gain and loss.
暗涌Waves·A Conversation with Li Xiang: Throwing Questions at Someone Who's Always Asking
Reflections of a Lifelong Business Journalist
Monolith砺思资本·First Snow, Clear Skies After Frost — Good News as Autumn Departs | Z News
The early winter breeze is crisp and clear.
真格基金·Exclusive | The Full Untold Story Beneath the Surface of "Kimi Yang Zhilin Arbitration Case"
Who saw the sixpence, and who saw the moon.
暗涌Waves·Exclusive | Kimi Founder Yang Zhilin Faces Arbitration Filed by Former Investors
Another scandal at a high-profile AI company.
暗涌Waves·127 startups founded by Tsinghua alumni, all backed by this one fund
On average, one out of every six companies ZhenFund has invested in comes from Tsinghua University.
真格基金·We invested in large language models, AI applications, and embodied intelligence, but BlueRun Ventures still feels it hasn't FOMO'd hard enough.
The more optimistic doers.
暗涌Waves·Moonshot AI Founder Zhilin Yang's Latest Take: Deep Reflections on OpenAI's o1 Paradigm Shift | Z Talk
The Next Phase of Foundation Models: A New Paradigm?
真格基金·Rongbao | Embodied intelligence, chips accelerate commercial rollout and R&D; AI transforms creative industries, finance, and more
Several companies made it onto the annual lists by *China Entrepreneur* and *Fortune*.
高榕创投·Late Summer Sun, Breezes Bringing Autumn | Z News
A gentle breeze blows warm and pleasant.
真格基金·A Conversation with Zhilin Yang: Focus on Productivity, Build the One Product That Is Kimi | Z Talk
Resist organizational inertia.
真格基金·Yusen Dai: Embrace the Era, Optimism, and the Power of Young People | Crossover with AI Tech Review Talk
真格基金·A Good AI Should Be Like Doraemon | Koji x Yusen
真格基金·Two Roads Diverge, But You Can't Travel Both | 2024 · Under 36
Make your choice.
暗涌Waves·Zhilin Yang: Innovation, Long-Term Thinking, First Principles
I'll see you on the other side of the moon.
Monolith砺思资本·Allen Zhu went left, Zhang Yutong went right
When Allen Zhu chose to stay put and ride out the storm, Zhang Yutong decided to find a new table.
暗涌Waves·Setting Out on a Journey at 36 | Call for Submissions
"Knowing would be fatal. Uncertainty is what makes it enchanting."
暗涌Waves·In less than six months, Moonshot AI's smart assistant has increased its capacity tenfold, now supporting 2 million characters of lossless context.
The Power of Focus
Monolith砺思资本·China's LLM Funding War: The Quick Death of Romance
Do the investors regret it?
暗涌Waves·Moonshot AI Kicks Off the "Long-Context Era" for 100-Billion-Parameter Models
A 100-billion-parameter LLM product that supports 200,000-word context windows
Monolith砺思资本·Entrepreneurship is a climb where the journey itself is the reward.
The journey is the reward.
Monolith砺思资本·Xi Cao of Lisi Capital and His Eleven Luo Han --- Wait — let me reconsider. "十一罗汉" is almost certainly a reference to *Ocean's Eleven* (the film), used here as a playful nickname for his team. Let me adjust: Xi Cao of Lisi Capital and His Ocean's Eleven
Starting a business is like climbing a mountain — the meaning lies in the climb itself.
暗涌Waves·Exclusive | The General-Purpose LLM Startup Wave: The First Battle Is About to End
Contestants, take your positions.
暗涌Waves·
