Kuaishou Keling AI Receives 2.028 Billion Dollar Investment From Initial Backers

Kuaishou announced that 21 initial investors will put 2.028 billion dollars into Beijing Keling. The unit holds Keling AI assets. The move sets the post-money valuation at 18 billion dollars. HKEX announcement

The filing also shows 15 more investors adding up to 766 million dollars. The total raise cap reaches 3 billion dollars. That amount equals 16.67 percent of the enlarged registered capital.

Kuaishou expects Keling AI to start a Hong Kong listing process inside the next 12 months. Proceeds will go toward more compute power, new data centers, and hiring.

The investment arrives at a time when Chinese AI startups seek fresh capital for scaling. Kuaishou already operates a short-video platform with strong domestic reach. Its AI unit now gains independent funding without an immediate public-market test. For instance, Kuaishou app users may soon see quicker generation of short clips that combine text prompts with video output - features currently bottlenecked by limited on-device compute.

This structure reduces direct balance-sheet pressure on the parent company. It also creates a clearer path for Keling AI to attract global talent and hardware partners.

Kuaishou faces pressure from rivals such as ByteDance and Baidu that run their own large AI programs. The separate vehicle lets Kuaishou test whether investors value its video-plus-AI combination at the stated valuation. Reuters

The filing lists a clear use of funds. Capital will expand graphics-processing capacity to multi-thousand GPU clusters - primarily NVIDIA-class accelerators (high-end chips specialized for complex AI training tasks) - for training large-scale multimodal models (AI systems that process and generate combinations of text, image, and video) and video-generation models, and build dedicated data centers to support Keling AI’s inference and data-processing operations. Keling AI is developing multimodal models that fuse text, image and video inputs, plus specialized video-generation architectures for applications such as educational content automation and e-commerce product visualization beyond Kuaishou’s own platform. It will also pay for engineers and researchers in model training and safety. Bloomberg

Kuaishou stated that the listing timeline depends on market conditions and regulatory approval. No specific quarter was named.

Market observers note that the 18 billion dollar valuation exceeds many Western AI startups at similar revenue stages. The number reflects optimism about Keling AI user growth inside Kuaishou apps. Financial Times Canalys analyst Jia Mo observed that “Chinese video-native AI labs are now valued on their ability to ship production-grade video models ahead of Western peers.”

Skeptics point out that the company has not yet published detailed revenue or margin figures for the AI segment. Valuation rests partly on forecasts rather than current profits.

The 16.67 percent stake sold in the latest round sets a transparent ownership baseline. Future rounds or an IPO will have to justify or adjust that price.

Kuaishou plans to keep strategic control while bringing in outside money. The structure allows the parent to retain the majority while still signaling independence to new shareholders.

Investors receive exposure to Keling AI without owning the entire short-video business. This separation may help if the unit lists on its own timetable.

Three signals will show whether the plan holds. First, any update on data-center construction contracts in the next quarter. Second, the speed of new model releases from Keling AI. Third, regulatory comments on the Hong Kong listing path.

Each of these items will confirm or weaken the current valuation story. Readers can track filings on the Hong Kong exchange for the next concrete moves.