Moonshot AI, founded in Beijing in 2023, builds the Kimi family of large language models and releases them as open weights for developers to download and run. It raised $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation in May 2026, according to TechCrunch.
At a glance
| Price from | Free (open weights) |
| Best for | Developers who want very large open models for coding and agents |
From Moonshot AI's own website.
What stands out
- Some of the largest open-weight models
- Fast release pace
Worth knowing
- Plans a public listing
- Running the biggest models needs heavy hardware
How it ranks
Moonshot AI is ranked 2nd of 10 in Best Open-Source AI Startups (Lister Score 96.0).
#2 in Best Open-Source AI Startups · Lister Score 96.0
In October 2026 the Japan Times reported Moonshot was eyeing a Hong Kong listing after its valuation reached about $50 billion..
| Rank | Best Open-Source AI Startups | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mistral AI | 97.3 |
| 2 | Moonshot AI | 96.0 |
| 3 | Together AI | 94.8 |
| 4 | Black Forest Labs | 93.5 |
| 5 | Reflection AI | 92.2 |
| 6 | Ollama | 90.9 |
| 7 | LangChain | 89.6 |
| 8 | Inferact | 88.3 |
| 9 | Nous Research | 87.0 |
| 10 | Stability AI | 85.7 |
Frequently asked questions
How does Moonshot AI rank on Lister?
Moonshot AI is ranked 2nd of 10 in Best Open-Source AI Startups (Lister Score 96.0).
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