Plaud Secures Investment from Leading Big Companies, Current Valuation Reaches $2 Billion | Exclusive Report by Yingke

Author | Huang Nan, Zhou Xinyu

Editor | Yuan Silai, Yang Xuan

Yingke exclusively learned that Plaud, an AI card voice recorder company, secured financing from Tencent in mid - 2025, with a valuation of $1 billion. Currently, Plaud's valuation has risen to approximately $2 billion. Meanwhile, Yingke learned from relevant sources that Plaud is promoting hardware cooperation with Tencent Meeting.

Regarding the above information, Yingke verified with Plaud and Tencent, and both parties stated that the news is untrue.

A person close to Plaud told Yingke that Plaud's total revenue in 2024 was approximately $56 million, with a profit margin close to 20%. "The revenue in 2025 almost tripled." Another insider revealed that Plaud's annual revenue in 2025 reached an all - time high, and the shipment volume of all products in the Chinese mainland met internal expectations.

However, Plaud's shipment volume is not high. An industry insider told Yingke that its sales volume in the domestic market may not have exceeded 100,000 units. Obviously, it is difficult for Plaud to replicate the rapid growth it experienced overseas in the past few years.

Plaud's rise coincided with the AI voice recording hardware boom triggered by ChatGPT. In 2023, the pain point that iPhones in the overseas market could not provide call recording services allowed the AI card voice recorder Plaud Note to quickly gain popularity. This device, which is only 2.9 millimeters thick and supports magnetic charging, integrates a multi - microphone array. After connecting to a large - scale model, it can realize real - time transcription of dozens of languages, generate meeting minutes, and perform multi - language translation, meeting the urgent needs of overseas users for call and meeting records.

Subsequently, Plaud's overseas market witnessed explosive growth, and it quickly joined the ranks of unicorns. Official data shows that in July 2025, Plaud's global sales volume exceeded one million units. Its pioneering AI voice recording products achieved ten - fold growth in the previous two years. Xu Gao, the co - founder of Plaud, also revealed in an interview with Forbes in November of the same year that Plaud's total revenue in 2025 is expected to reach $250 million.

Behind the rapid growth are the natural dividends and first - mover advantages of the overseas market. "The core reason for Plaud's early success was seizing the first - mover window for a single form. At that time, no one was making such a thin and light voice recording device that could be magnetically attached to a mobile phone and integrated with a large - scale model, so overseas users had no alternative options," the head of a leading AI hardware company told Yingke.

Relying on its overseas brand influence, Plaud began to layout the Chinese market. An insider revealed to Yingke that as early as the beginning of 2025, Plaud started preparations for its mainland business. Initially, it chose to enter the medical and financial industries and use B2B professional services as a breakthrough point for implementation.

In September 2025, Plaud launched three products, Plaud Note, NotePin S, and Note Pro, targeting consumer - level users in the Chinese mainland, with prices of 1,149 yuan, 1,249 yuan, and 1,299 yuan respectively.

From left to right: Plaud Note Pro, Plaud NotePin S, Plaud Note (Source/Enterprise)

It can be seen that Plaud's overall pricing is higher than that of domestic competitors in the same category, but there is no substantial difference in core functions. After entering the Chinese mainland, the brand and supply - chain advantages that Plaud had accumulated overseas almost became ineffective, and development bottlenecks gradually emerged. "A mature supply - chain system means that the cost of replicating products in China will be very low. The Chinese market will be more competitive," a former Plaud employee told Yingke.

In terms of hardware structure, Plaud has a weak moat, and its form is easily replicable. Its core magnetic card design does not have a high engineering barrier. Relying on the perfect audio hardware supply chain in China, peer manufacturers can quickly replicate the appearance and surpass Plaud in miniaturization technology, noise reduction, and hardware tuning.

Even if Plaud subsequently launched new - form products such as Pin, it only made minor adjustments to the appearance and wearing method. It did not achieve subversive innovation in the scenario experience and failed to extend to diverse recording scenarios such as life and entertainment, making it difficult to stimulate users' repurchase and replacement needs.

Secondly, in terms of software, Plaud's AI functions are not exclusive, and the tool attributes are homogeneous. Core capabilities such as real - time transcription, meeting summaries, and multi - language translation are all based on the open capabilities of general large - scale models, making it difficult to form exclusive underlying technologies. An industry insider commented to Yingke: "AI gave Plaud a growth dividend, but it failed to build a proprietary technological moat. With the rapid iteration of domestic apps and large - scale models, similar functions can be easily replicated. And this is indeed the case at present."

More importantly, after the entry of office - ecosystem giants, they directly outflanked start - up companies like Plaud. In August 2025, DingTalk released the AI voice recording card DingTalk A1; in January 2026, Anker jointly launched the "AI voice recording bean" with ByteDance, further intensifying competition in the track. As a Plaud employee commented: "The speed at which domestic giants enter the market far exceeds expectations. The strategy in 2026 must be more competitive."

Plaud has long been confined to a single scenario of office and call recording, which is precisely the home field of DingTalk and Feishu's ecosystems. Enterprise users are already deeply involved in using DingTalk and Feishu for office collaboration. These platforms natively have functions such as meeting recording, intelligent minutes, and document linkage, eliminating the need to purchase additional hardware, directly diverting a large number of Plaud's core customer groups.

Now, the AI voice recording hardware track is becoming increasingly crowded. Leading technology manufacturers such as Dreame and Mobvoi have quickly launched similar products. Plaud must rely on a large company to build its model capabilities to have a chance of surviving in the domestic market.

Coincidentally, Tencent also needs a hardware touchpoint to quickly join the war in the smart hardware field.

An insider told Yingke that previously, Tencent Meeting and Tencent Work WeChat established a hardware project team to explore the combination with hardware such as mobile phones and smartwatches. "Tencent will not give up the hardware entry point."

Another reason for Tencent's rapid entry into the hardware battlefield is that the growth of office software is gradually reaching its ceiling.

An industry insider mentioned that even though Tencent Meeting's revenue has increased several times in the past two years, the overall internal market judgment is that "the growth dividend of AI - driven software will soon disappear, and hardware will be the new growth curve."

"Tencent Meeting has long thought that since its positioning is a meeting tool, its ultimate form should cover not only the online but also the offline. Currently, the best touchpoint for covering the offline is hardware, especially voice recorders that match users' note - taking habits," the above - mentioned person said.

Tencent stated that the above information is untrue.

If Tencent's investment in Plaud is finalized, all three major AI companies will have entered the AI voice recording hardware track. Their influence will obviously not be limited to the voice recording scenario. Instead, they will launch hardware covering multiple scenarios around their office software, ultimately forming a wider and deeper moat. The office scenario has witnessed a full - scale war between software and hardware among giants.