Chinese Tech Startup & Funding Morning Brief2026-05-25China Tech Startup & Funding Brief — May 25, 2026CXMT enters STAR Market listing review (¥29.5B raise, ¥3T+ projected market cap); Huawei server spinout Chaojibian files China's largest 2026 SZSE IPO (¥8B); YMTC starts A-share counseling; Junaopanshi closes ¥100M+ for Huawei "embodied brain" founder's cognitive world model startup; OriginFlow's 25-year-old Tsinghua PhD raises ¥500M+ in five months for robotics data infra; Ziguang Guowei acquires Ruineng Semi for ¥1.9B.
Chinese Tech Startup & Funding Morning Brief2026-05-24China Tech Startup & Funding Brief — May 23, 2026DeepSeek's first external round expands to RMB 700B (~$10B), potentially the largest single startup fundraise in Chinese tech history; PKU-incubated Weifan AI closes a seed round for China's first native robot brain chip; CXMT and YMTC simultaneously move toward domestic listings riding the AI memory upcycle; SMIC clears CSRC approval for its RMB 40.6B SMNC acquisition — the largest-ever STAR Market deal; and Manus founders explore a $1B fundraise to buy the company back from Meta.
Chinese Tech Startup & Funding Morning Brief2026-05-22China Tech Startup & Funding Brief — May 22, 2026State capital cements its role as anchor investor in Chinese AI: DeepSeek targets a $7B round at a ~$49B valuation as the National AI Fund moves to lead; Approaching.AI closes a Pre-A on AI Token infra; YuShiKongJian raises RMB 500M for its Starship-style reusable rocket; PixVerse crosses a $1B valuation on RMB 2.5B raised in six months; and Jiangbolang gets exchange approval for a RMB 3.7B AI memory chip secondary offering.
Chinese Tech Startup & Funding Morning Brief2026-05-21China Tech Startup & Funding Brief — May 21, 2026Moonshot AI (Kimi) announces it will unwind its offshore VIE structure for a Hong Kong IPO at a $20B valuation; Step AI nears a $2.5B close with device giants and sovereign capital; DeepSeek inches toward its first-ever external round at a ~$45B target valuation; Weta Dynamics closes China's largest consumer robotics Pre-A at ~RMB 500M; and Alibaba T-Head debuts its Zhen Wu M890 training-inference AI chip.
Chinese Tech Startup & Funding Morning Brief2026-05-20China Tech Startup & Funding Brief — May 20, 2026Today's roundup: AstronStone raises RMB 500M Series A for China's Starship-architecture rocket; AI Agent startups pack the funding queue led by ex-BigTech execs; Kimi (Moonshot AI) welcomes state-backed investors; Youju Body eyes a RMB 3B valuation; and an IT桔子 deep-dive finds Huawei alumni have built 588 startups collectively raising RMB 500B+.