China's artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Zhipu AI said on Tuesday that it has raised 3 billion yuan (US$412 million) in a new funding round, beefing up the firm's war chest as it braces for stiffer competition in the market.
The new financing adds to a funding spree that has seen Zhipu secure four investment rounds so far this year from a long list of marquee backers, from state-backed investment vehicles to Big Tech firms such as Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, as well as prominent venture capital funds Qiming Ventures and Legend Capital. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Zhipu did not disclose its valuation after the latest financing. It was valued at 20 billion yuan after its previous financing round in September, led by Beijing Zhongguancun Science City Innovation Development, a state-backed investment vehicle.
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Zhipu AI chief executive Zhang Peng speaks at a corporate event held in Beijing on June 5, 2024. Photo: Handout alt=Zhipu AI chief executive Zhang Peng speaks at a corporate event held in Beijing on June 5, 2024. Photo: Handout>
Zhipu's new funding comes as it has intensified efforts to expand its offerings to fend off domestic competition. Its services include AI solutions for businesses and a versatile chatbot, capable of handing text inquiries and generating images and videos, that caters to individual users and charges for premium access.
Zhipu said it doubled its revenue year on year from January to November, without providing an exact figure.
Zhipu was among the Chinese AI firms engaged in a price war earlier this year to offer discounted application programming interface (API) services for third-party companies to build their AI applications. Selling API access is one way local and foreign AI firms have monetised their services.
Zhipu charges a 39 yuan standard monthly fee for premium access to its ChatGLM, which can summarise articles and write marketing proposals, as well as generate images and video clips. The chatbot is free for basic use.
ChatGLM was ranked the fourth most-popular chatbot app in China last month, with around 6.4 million monthly active users, behind Doubao from TikTok parent ByteDance, Wenxiaoyan from search giant Baidu and Kimi from Moonshot AI, according to Aicpb.com which tracks the popularity of global AI products.
Zhipu is also among the most active Chinese companies exploring the use of AI agents with the launch of its AutoGLM in late October.
The AutoGLM app is designed to operate a smartphone on behalf of a user, responding to voice commands to carry out simple tasks like accessing purchase records from an e-commerce app or ordering coffee from the nearest cafe, to completing more complex cross-app tasks, all within seconds.
While Zhipu's AutoGLM exemplifies one specific use of AI agents, the ability of such programmes to achieve efficiency gains for businesses is expected to contribute to a rapid rise in their adoption, according to accounting firm Deloitte.
Deloitte forecasts that as early as next year, 25 per cent of companies using generative AI will explore the use of such agents. The adoption rate is expected to rise to around 50 per cent by 2027.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) , the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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