A Comprehensive Review of the "Six Tigers" in the Large Model Field in 2025: Personnel Turmoil, Financing Races, and Industry Reshuffle
“Funding and personnel - over the past year, the narratives of the 'Six Little Tigers' have almost revolved around these two aspects.”
3.5 billion yuan! On New Year's Eve, Kimi, one of the 'Six Little Tigers' in the domestic large - model field, disclosed to the market that it had completed a round of financing.
This is another major piece of news from Kimi after the personnel change of Zhang Yutong, the president of Dark Side of the Moon, in early December. Funding and personnel - over the past year, the narratives of the 'Six Little Tigers' have almost revolved around these two aspects.
For the 'Six Little Tigers', in the past year, they have gone from being 'favorites of the capital' to facing a 'brutal reshuffle', and the differentiation of their fates has become an indisputable fact.
Personnel Turbulence and Strategic Focus
In the past year, the 'Six Little Tigers' have all experienced frequent personnel upheavals without exception. As the industry develops forward, personnel changes for the 'Six Little Tigers' are not only a need for talent replacement but also an internal requirement for corporate strategic adjustment.
Previously, many senior executives of Baichuan Intelligence left, and later, Zero One Universe made a series of high - level appointments. Personnel adjustment has become an inevitable 'question' that enterprises have to face.
According to a review by iyiou.com, there were more than 20 personnel changes among the 'Six Little Tigers' in the large - model field in 2025, including departures, appointments, and promotions.
What deserves the most attention is the collective departure of many senior executives of Baichuan Intelligence in March 2025. Hong Tao, the co - founder and head of commercialization; Jiao Ke, the co - founder and head of Internet business; Chen Weipeng, the co - founder; Deng Jiang, the head of financial business; and Li Shizheng, the head of medical business, all chose to leave.
It is rumored that after the departure storm, only Wang Xiaochuan and co - founder Ru Liyun remained in the founding team of Baichuan Intelligence. After the personnel upheaval, Wang Xiaochuan, the founder of Baichuan Intelligence, adjusted the company's business direction in April 2025, officially focusing on four directions: 'Baixiaoying, AI Pediatrics, AI General Practice, and Precision Medicine'.
Different from the departure of many senior executives at Baichuan Intelligence, Zero One Universe made a series of high - level appointments last year.
Zero One Universe, which was one of the first to abandon self - developed large models and turn to an enterprise - level application platform, also experienced the departure of its person - in - charge in the first half of 2025. However, in October of that year, Zero One Universe deepened its ToB strategy and made a series of high - level appointments. Shen Pengfei, the former deputy general manager of Baidu Smart Cloud in the Chinese market, joined Zero One Universe as a co - founder. In addition, Zhao Binqiang, an early core member of the company, was promoted to vice - president of AI models and professional user products, officially focusing on the construction of the model platform technology and professional product system. At the same time, Ning Ning, who joined Zero One Universe in early 2024, was also officially promoted to vice - president of international business and AI consulting, responsible for global business expansion and the construction of the AI consulting system.
In addition, after leaving GSR Ventures, Zhang Yutong officially attended an event as the president of Dark Side of the Moon in December 2025, which also attracted media attention.
Zhipu, which recently went public, was also not spared from the personnel adjustment storm. Zhang Kuo, the chief strategy officer, and Qu Teng, the vice - president, left in January 2025. Peng Jianbiao, the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of Zhipu, left in May 2025, and Zhang Fan, the COO (Chief Operating Officer), also left in July of the same year.
However, in comparison, the personnel changes of MiniMax and Jieyue Xingchen, two startup companies, seem to be relatively 'calm'. After the departure of Wei Wei, the product director and vice - president of MiniMax, the company adjusted its business direction and focused more on technology and ToC. In September last year, it launched a 'One - million - dollar Option Incentive Plan' to attract AGI talents.
In December, Qi Junyuan, the former person - in - charge of Doubao PC under ByteDance, joined Jieyue Xingchen. It is reported that he will help the company with product innovation and commercialization in the fields of edge - cloud collaborative AI architecture and hardware AI assistants. Overall, on the one hand, business strategic adjustment forces the optimization of the talent structure, and on the other hand, commercialization pressure leads to the iteration of the management team. These are two important factors for the personnel changes of the 'Six Little Tigers' in the domestic large - model field.
In the short term, the loss of core talents can easily lead to team upheaval and a temporary halt in technology R & D and commercialization processes.
In the long run, personnel adjustment achieves strategic focus and team optimization. For example, Baichuan Intelligence has strengthened its resource integration ability in the medical vertical track by introducing senior executives with industrial investment backgrounds.
It cannot be ignored that the personnel reshuffle has accelerated the differentiation of the 'Six Little Tigers'. Enterprises adhering to general models have further increased R & D investment, while those turning to the application layer have formed a commercialization closed - loop more quickly.
Capital Game: Alibaba and Tencent Actively Deploy, ByteDance Stays 'Out of the Picture'
Among the six large - model startup companies, both Tencent and Alibaba - affiliated entities have invested in five of them.
Personnel changes are a change path that enterprises can choose independently, while the entry of capital has injected strong impetus into the development of enterprises.
Looking at the financing history of each company, more financing activities in 2025 took place among Zhipu, MiniMax, and Dark Side of the Moon.
According to official data from Tianyancha, Zero One Universe and Baichuan Intelligence among the 'Six Little Tigers' did not disclose any financing activities in 2025, and the recorded financing activities remained in 2024.
In addition, for Jieyue Xingchen, in July 2025, Cailian Press reported exclusively that Jieyue Xingchen was conducting a new round of financing with an amount exceeding $500 million, but there has been no official confirmation.
In 2025, Zhipu, MiniMax, and Dark Side of the Moon carried out 6, 3, and 1 financing activities respectively. Among them, Dark Side of the Moon disclosed its Series C financing on December 31st, raising $500 million. The main investors included Alibaba, Tencent, and IDG Capital, and the post - investment valuation of the enterprise reached $4.3 billion.
For the currently popular Zhipu and MiniMax, it can be seen from their financing histories that they have become the darlings of the capital.
For Zhipu, its financing activities in 2025 were the most remarkable. It not only completed the last round of financing before the IPO, but the post - investment valuation has long exceeded 20 billion yuan. According to the latest news, after Zhipu launched its IPO on December 30th, it will officially list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 8th, becoming the veritable 'first large - model stock in the world'. According to its announcement, the IPO price is set at HK$116.2 per share, and the total expected fundraising is about HK$4.3 billion.
MiniMax, which is also favored by the capital in the Hong Kong stock market, has completed three rounds of financing since the second half of 2025, with a cumulative financing amount exceeding $750 million. The investors include Alibaba, Shanghai State - owned Assets Mother Fund, IDG Capital, and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
Although Zero One Universe, Jieyue Xingchen, and Baichuan Intelligence have not disclosed any financing activities, Wang Xiaochuan, the founder of Baichuan Intelligence, has repeatedly stated in public that the company has sufficient cash flow, and the previous departures of employees were not due to financial pressure.
According to iyiou.com, Zero One Universe, which rarely appears in the capital market, is currently focusing on industry applications such as industrial large models and Wanzhi Enterprise Agent, and is strengthening its B - end business. It has not disclosed a clear listing plan.
What deserves the most attention is that among the six companies, in addition to five receiving investments from Tencent, five have also received investment attention from Alibaba - affiliated entities.
Among them, Alibaba Cloud not only participated in the angel - round investment of Zero One Universe as the leading investor but also has many connections with Zero One Universe as a business - related party.
As can be seen from the previous table, Internet technology giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi have extended their AI ecological layout by investing in the 'Six Little Tigers', providing more practical tests for the verification of the large - model market.
Since the upsurge of large models continues to this day, from the 'Hundred - Model War' to the verification of commercialization, after years of the survival of the fittest, a consensus in the industry is that this is ultimately a battlefield for giants.
Currently, among the large - model giant camps represented by Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have continued their consistent CVC approach in the 'Six Little Tigers', while ByteDance, perhaps due to its confidence in its own products, has not made strategic and financial investments in the 'Six Little Tigers'.
Overall, in 2025, the 'Six Little Tigers' in the Chinese large - model field have undergone a profound transformation from technological fanaticism to commercial implementation. Personnel reshuffle has become an inevitable choice for strategic focus, and in - depth product development has become the core path for value implementation.
With Zhipu and MiniMax going public one after another, the pressure on the other four companies has increased. However, regardless of the environment, for the 'Six Little Tigers', adhering to core technologies, deepening scenario implementation, and optimizing business models will be the key to surviving the cycle. The continuous game of capital, talent, and ecosystem will also promote the Chinese large - model industry from catching up to surpassing and occupying an important position in the global AI competition.
This article is from the WeChat official account “iyiou.com” (ID: i - iyiou), written by Liu Juan and published by 36Kr with permission.