Tencent's heavy investment: A Shanghai IPO worth tens of billions is coming.

A record - breaking financing is about to be born.

According to investment industry sources, Jieyue Xingchen is about to complete a new financing of $2.5 billion (approximately RMB 17 billion). An industrial powerhouse has emerged among the investors, including Huaqin Technology, Longcheer Technology, OmniVision Technologies, and ZTE Corporation.

Additionally, informed sources revealed to the investment industry that Tencent, an old shareholder, has participated in this round of financing again, and Hong Kong Investment Management Co., Ltd. (referred to as "HKIMC") has also joined the investment.

Meanwhile, Jieyue is accelerating its sprint towards an IPO. Informed sources said that Jieyue has also removed its red - chip structure, clearing the key obstacle for its Hong Kong IPO. Roughly calculated, Jieyue has raised over RMB 20 billion in just a few months this year. Given this financing scale and speed, it is very likely that the next IPO worth hundreds of billions will soon be born in the venture capital circle.

Yin Qi, Chairman of Jieyue Xingchen and Qianli Technology

Through this financing, the booming scene of China's large - model industry is fully revealed: Yuezhianmian and DeepSeek have both reported major financing moves. Quietly, the final battle of China's AI has begun.

The annual IPO is coming. Tencent is betting, and HKIMC is providing support.

This is already Tencent's third investment in Jieyue.

Looking back in time, as early as Jieyue's Series B financing, Tencent was already among the investors. Later, in the impressive RMB 5 billion Series B+ financing in January this year, Tencent, as an old shareholder, continued to participate. Tencent's participation in this round of financing again subtly reveals a key signal - it marks that the relationship between the two parties has deepened from a simple financial investment relationship to a comprehensive collaboration in AI technology, ecosystem, and scenarios.

As is well - known, in the field of general large models, Internet giants such as ByteDance and Alibaba are fully focused on self - research, which has led to the birth of Doubao and Qianwen. Tencent, on the other hand, adopts a dual - track strategy of "self - researching Hunyuan + embracing top - notch open - source models". In comparison, Tencent has obvious advantages in content and application ecosystems.

Further analysis shows that Tencent needs to efficiently sink its existing traffic, content, and service ecosystems to the terminal to build a new closed - loop monetization model. Therefore, finding a partner that can provide high - quality models is crucial. Jieyue's rich experience in base models and hardware - software integration solutions can precisely fill this gap.

For Tencent, continuous multi - round investments in Jieyue have gone beyond the scope of financial investment. In fact, it is a key step to complete its base model map and seize the AI terminal entrance.

Just recently, Tencent Cloud reached a strategic cooperation with Jieyue, linking Tencent's content service ecosystems such as music, video, and maps to jointly create an intelligent cockpit Agent. In addition, it will integrate Jieyue's multi - intention recognition ability of the large model with Tencent's ecological interfaces in fields such as payment, maps, and travel services to create a one - stop service closed - loop from demand recognition to transaction completion in the car.

Undoubtedly, Tencent has the largest content and application ecosystem in China. If Jieyue's model capabilities can be embedded in a series of super apps such as WeChat and QQ, it means that the latter's model training will have an inexhaustible source of "fuel". Jieyue can also use Tencent Cloud to expand enterprise service scenarios and achieve rapid implementation in the B - end market.

Looking at the list of investors in this round, the appearance of HKIMC is also thought - provoking. As an investment entity wholly owned by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, HKIMC is known as the "Hong Kong - style Temasek" by the outside world. It can be seen that HKIMC's shadow looms behind well - known technology companies such as Smoore Technology, BioMap, Galaxy Universal, Constellation Pharmaceuticals, and Insilico Medicine.

Chen Jiaqi, the CEO of HKIMC, once told the investment industry that the team shoulders a dual mission: while pursuing reasonable medium - and long - term financial returns, more importantly, by supporting the development of Hong Kong's innovation and technology and strategic industries, it can enhance Hong Kong's long - term competitiveness and economic vitality. Therefore, HKIMC's investment decisions often carry a strong policy orientation and a guiding significance.

Currently, Jieyue is the only general large - model company invested by HKIMC. This choice is by no means accidental. This makes people think that Jieyue completed its share reform in April this year and changed to a joint - stock limited company. Now, its red - chip structure has also been removed, which is usually regarded as a pre - step for a Hong Kong IPO.

It can be predicted that the "third domestic large - model stock" is about to emerge.

Behind the record - breaking financing, mobile phone supply chain giants are gathering.

This time, the mobile phone supply chain giants have also collectively stood behind Jieyue.

Undoubtedly, this is a financing with a very high concentration of industrial capital. Counting the reported list of investors, it includes Huaqin Technology, Longcheer Technology, OmniVision Technologies, and ZTE Corporation. The gathering of a group of leading enterprises in the mobile phone and consumer electronics industries is rare in previous large - model financings dominated by financial institutions and Internet capital.

Specifically, Huaqin Technology, as one of the world's largest mobile phone ODM manufacturers, has been a core supplier to leading brands such as Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO for many years, with shipments of smart products exceeding 300 million units.

Longcheer Technology is also a leading player in the domestic ODM industry, covering all categories of hardware such as mobile phones, tablets, and IoT devices. Data shows that its overall consumer electronics ODM shipments in 2024 ranked second in the world.

OmniVision Technologies is a global leading image sensor supplier. It is not only a core player in key components of mobile phone imaging systems but also ranks first in the global automotive CIS market share.

ZTE Corporation, a well - known comprehensive communication manufacturer, has been deeply involved in the fields of 5G terminals and smart hardware. Its revenue in the first quarter of this year was nearly RMB 35 billion, comparable to that of two overseas giants, Nokia and Ericsson.

So, why do these industrial leaders collectively bet on a large - model company?

Currently, as the replacement cycle of smartphones is lengthening and hardware innovation has reached its ceiling, the entire market has entered a stock competition, and the profit margin has been continuously compressed. Therefore, these industrial leaders are eager to find a new growth engine, and AI undoubtedly provides a new possibility.

In this way, the logic behind their collective investment in Jieyue is self - evident - to seize the right to speak in the AI terminal market. Imagine that when large - model capabilities are integrated into hardware scenarios such as mobile phones, PCs, and IoT devices, smart terminals will evolve from "passive response" to "active service", and each category will have an opportunity for reshuffle.

By deeply binding with Jieyue, these industrial leaders can obtain advanced model capabilities first and integrate them into their design and manufacturing solutions, thereby breaking the label of "assembly factory" and achieving value upgrading of products. For example, ZTE Mobile has previously deeply cooperated with Jieyue to create AI mobile phone functions, which have been mass - produced in many flagship models such as the Nubia Z80 Ultra.

For Jieyue, the value of this financing is far more than just the capital. If in the past few years, the competition theme of domestic large models was "competing on parameters and rankings", now the real key to victory lies in who can quickly implement model capabilities in specific scenarios and occupy the industrial entrance.

The collective entry of mobile phone supply chain giants directly helps Jieyue bridge the last mile for the implementation of large models in hardware scenarios. At the same time, the visible manufacturing and integration capabilities of hundreds of millions of smart terminals every year also open up a huge imagination space for Jieyue in the AI terminal market.

For example, relying on the massive terminal shipment channels of Huaqin and Longcheer, Jieyue's large model can quickly penetrate hundreds of millions of smart terminals. By leveraging the hardware technology advantages of OmniVision and ZTE, it can achieve deep adaptation between the model and sensors and communication modules, optimize end - side inference efficiency, and reduce energy consumption.

This means that through this financing, Jieyue can obtain a fast path from "model - terminal - user", which is difficult for other large - model companies to replicate.

In other words, Jieyue has already grasped the ticket to the AI terminal era.

A landmark scene in China's AI

A watershed is approaching.

To date, the AI industry has entered the Agentic intelligent agent era from the cloud - based large - model era, and the migration of large - model capabilities to the terminal has become a global consensus. It is no exaggeration to say that whether it is mobile phones, PCs, cars, or headphones, glasses, and robots, they can all be re - defined by AI as core carriers. This is why OpenAI was recently reported to be accelerating the R & D process of its first AI Agent mobile phone, with mass production expected as early as the first half of 2027.

Looking back at the domestic situation - why has Jieyue stood out in this new competition?

It is said that the core of the Agentic era lies in the shift from "passive response" to "active planning, tool invocation, environmental interaction, and long - term execution". This means that in the Agentic era, full - modality capabilities are not just an added bonus but a necessary condition. In the future, large models will no longer be just a single dialogue system but need to become an intelligent agent base with autonomy, adaptability, and execution ability.

Jieyue is one of the few domestic model manufacturers that have invested in the R & D of full - modality including text, voice, image, and vision and adhere to the native multi - modality. This layout gives it a closed - loop ability throughout the "perception, reasoning, and execution" of the Agent, enabling it to create the most suitable base large model for the next - generation intelligent agents.

Among them, Step 3.5 Flash, released in February this year, is an open - source flagship model designed specifically for Agent scenarios and can serve as the Agent's brain to perform complex reasoning tasks. Its maximum inference speed is 350 TPS, and it can compete with closed - source models in Agent scenarios and mathematical tasks, and can handle complex and long - chain tasks. After the release of this model, it continuously topped the monthly list, trending list, and total weekly call list of OpenRouter OpenClaw application calls globally.

In addition, Jieyue is also one of the few domestic companies that have deployed full - modality models and have comprehensively leading performance. Its self - developed matrix covers various sub - fields such as voice interaction, real - time voice, audio reasoning, music generation, visual understanding and generation, and VLA. Recently, Jieyue's new - generation voice generation model StepAudio2.5 TTS ranked first among Chinese large models on the well - known global TTS evaluation list Artificial Analysis Speech Arena Leaderboard. The full - modality layout means that Jieyue's model can cover the three capabilities of "seeing, thinking, and doing", enabling the Agent to smoothly perform tasks in real - world interaction scenarios such as intelligent driving, intelligent cockpits, and robots.

In the two most penetrated and high - frequency physical terminal entrances of cars and mobile phones, Jieyue has taken the lead in running through the business closed - loop. A set of data shows that in the mobile phone field, 60% of the leading domestic mobile phone brands have reached in - depth cooperation with Jieyue, covering flagship models of multiple brands, with a model installation volume of over 42 million units and serving nearly 20 million person - times per day.

Among domestic large - model unicorns, Jieyue is probably the only one that takes "AI + terminal" as its core strategy and has formed a leading effect. Opportunities are fleeting. When investors flock to grab the tickets to the "AI + terminal" market, Jieyue's scarcity undoubtedly makes it an inevitable choice. To some extent, it is the "must - invest target".

As for whether this is the right choice, time will tell.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Investment World" (ID: pedaily2012). Author: Liu Bo. Republished by 36Kr with permission.