Chinese AI model maker Stepfun raises hundreds of millions in Series B funding

Chinese creator of generative artificial intelligence models Stepfun would have closed on a bumper financing cycle worth “several hundred million dollars” from a host of investors, including public private equity firms and local tech giants.

The round was led by Fortera Capital, which is the private equity arm of state-owned Shanghai Capital Investment Co. It revealed the round on Wednesday via a post on social media platform WeChat, and the story was picked up today by the Chinese News Agency Xinhua. The exact amount of funding has not been disclosed.

Other backers include Chinese video game and social media giant Tencent Holdings Co. Ltd. and Qiming Venture Partners, which was an early backer of ByteDance Ltd., TikTok’s parent company, as well as Xiaomi Corp.

Stepfun was founded in April 2023 by Jiang Daxin, former chief scientist of Microsoft Asia Research Institute. The Shanghai-based startup is an AI model maker, similar to U.S. companies like OpenAI or Anthropic PBC, and is one of several Chinese companies striving to match the innovation of those companies. Earlier this year, Stepfun announced the launch of its most advanced software Step 1V large multimodal language model with over 100 billion parameters, and is currently testing its Model step 2which would exceed more than 1,000 billion parameters.

In large language models, the number of parameters is a key metric because it highlights their ability to fit more complex data patterns and make more accurate predictions.

The startup said it will use funds from today’s round to expand its multimodal capabilities and focus on improving the advanced reasoning capabilities of its models, while also launching new consumer-focused and consumer-based products. on its fundamental models.

Stepfun is just the latest Chinese model maker to raise millions of dollars in funding. A week ago, a startup called Zhipu AI closed a major 3 billion yuan ($411 million) funding round led by a number of state-backed investment vehicles, as well as Tencent, Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd., Qiming Ventures and Legend Capital.

The round brought the value of Zhipu AI to more than 20 billion yuan, Chinese media reported at the time.

Image: Stepfun