Moonshot AI files confidential Hong Kong IPO application

Moonshot AI, the Chinese startup that shook the industry with its Kimi K3 AI model, has confidentially filed for a stock listing in Hong Kong and is targeting an initial public offering as early as the first quarter of next year.

The South China Morning Post reported Thursday (local time) that Moonshot AI submitted a confidential IPO application to the Hong Kong exchange while simultaneously preparing its final funding round. Sources told the outlet that the company aims to list in Hong Kong as early as the first quarter of next year, adding that the timeline could change depending on approval from Hong Kong regulators and market conditions.

Moonshot AI declined to confirm the report, saying in response to the outlet's inquiry that it does not comment on "market rumors or speculation."

Ahead of the IPO, the company is also pursuing a final fundraising round, targeting a valuation of $50 billion.

Moonshot AI drew global attention in July when it released Kimi K3. The model is the world's largest open-weight AI model, with more than 2.8 trillion parameters — a scale generally associated with greater processing power and performance.

Kimi K3 sent shockwaves through the industry by matching the performance of flagship models from OpenAI and Anthropic on some benchmarks while offering significantly lower prices. Its cost per one million output tokens is 50 percent below OpenAI's "o3" and 70 percent below Anthropic's "Claude Fable 5."

Riding Kimi K3's performance and cost efficiency, Moonshot AI has seen rapid sales growth this year. According to Nomura Securities, the company's annualized recurring revenue is expected to reach $1 billion by year-end. ARR is a key metric that projects 12 months of monthly subscription revenue. The figure was estimated at $400 million to $500 million as recently as mid-year but has doubled since the start of this month.

Meanwhile, Moonshot AI is not alone among Chinese AI developers eyeing public markets. DeepSeek and StepFun are also preparing IPOs. DeepSeek is pursuing a listing on Shanghai's STAR Market — the city's NASDAQ-equivalent exchange — and plans to raise funds through a pre-IPO round.