Zhipu

Zhipu AI is a Chinese foundation-model company co-founded by Tang Jie and Zhang Peng, with roots in Tsinghua University's knowledge-engineering lab . Founded in 2019, it is the earliest among China's "six little tigers" of large-model startups and has cultivated a distinctly academic, state-aligned investor base: early backers include Qiming Venture Partners, Legend Capital and Dachen Venture Capital, while more recent rounds have drawn heavy state capital—over RMB 1.8 billion from Chengdu, Hangzhou and Zhuhai state funds in March 2025 alone . The company went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in early 2026, positioning itself as the "global large-model first stock" .

Beyond its core model development, Zhipu has built an active strategic-investment footprint, following rounds in legal-AI startup PowerLaw AI and biotech firm BioGeometry , and maintains ecosystem partnerships with ByteDance's Volcano Engine and automotive-data firm UnicData . Its product suite centers on the Zhipu Qingyan chatbot, which introduced paid features in late 2024 .