MiniMax Announces New $2 Bn Funding

The fundraising follows MiniMax’s Hong Kong IPO in January, in which the company raised roughly HK$4.8 billion (about $614 million) at a valuation of approximately $6.5 billion.

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MiniMax, the Chinese AI lab, is seeking to raise approximately HK$16.04 billion ($2.05 billion) through a combination of a Hong Kong share placement and zero-coupon convertible bonds.

This marks one of the largest AI capital raises by a publicly listed Chinese model developer this year.

The proceeds will be used to expand AI infrastructure, fund research and development, accelerate commercialisation, and support general corporate operations, according to the company.

The financing consists of 35.6 million new Class A shares priced at HK$268 per share, raising about HK$9.54 billion, alongside HK$6.5 billion in zero-coupon convertible bonds maturing in 2027.

The bonds carry a conversion price of HK$335, a premium to the placement price. The announcement sent MiniMax shares down about 12% as investors reacted to the expected dilution

Alongside the fundraising announcement, MiniMax employees shared a letter from Founder and CEO Yan Junjie, who said he would forgo his salary until the company achieves artificial general intelligence (AGI).

“Starting today, and until the day we reach AGI, I will no longer receive any compensation from the company,” he wrote in the internal note, translated and shared publicly by MiniMax employees.

He also committed to transferring shares equivalent to 4% of the company’s total equity from his personal holdings over the next four years to reward long-term employees.

An additional 1% of his holdings will be allocated to establish a fund supporting open-source communities and the broader AI ecosystem.

“I will devote all my time, energy, and resources to this mission,” he wrote, describing the move as his long-term commitment to the company, its employees and its pursuit of AGI.

The fundraising follows MiniMax’s Hong Kong IPO in January, in which the company raised roughly HK$4.8 billion (about $614 million) at a valuation of approximately $6.5 billion, priced at the top of its marketed range amid strong investor demand.

Financially, MiniMax reported 2025 revenue of $79 million, up 159% year over year, with more than 70% of revenue generated outside China. Consumer AI subscriptions and enterprise AI services were the primary growth drivers.

The company, however, remained loss-making, reporting a $1.87 billion net loss, largely driven by fair-value changes in financial instruments following its IPO.

The company’s latest major model launch is MiniMax M3, released in June.

MiniMax positions M3 as its flagship open-weight multimodal model, combining a 1 million-token context window, native image and video understanding, and a new MiniMax Sparse Attention (MSA) architecture designed to reduce long-context inference costs while improving coding and agentic performance.

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Staff Writer
Staff Writer
The AI & Data Insider team works with a staff of in-house writers and industry experts.

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