Moonshot AI Responds to Founder Yang Zhilin Being Taken to Arbitration by Former Investors

Founder Yang Zhilin and co-founder and CTO Zhang Yutao of the Moonshot AI (Kimi) were recently arbitrated by investors from their former company, Circulus Intelligence, in Hong Kong. The relevant electronic arbitration application has been formally submitted to the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC).

In response to this arbitration, Moonshot AI today responded to reporter, stating that a statement has been issued by David Morrison, a senior partner at Mingde Law Firm. The statement reads: Our firm has accepted Mr. Yang Zhilin’s and Mr. Zhang Yutao’s instructions and is aware of the related arbitration matters. We believe that this matter lacks legal basis and factual foundation; therefore, our firm will raise objections according to law.

It is reported that the applicants for this arbitration include Recurrent AI and its five investors: GSR Ventures, Eminence Ventures, Boyu Capital, WestSummit Capital, and Zoo Capital.

Recurrent AI is an enterprise marketing customer service AI software provider established in 2016. Yang Zhilin, Zhang Yutao, and another co-founder Chen Qicong all come from Tsinghua University’s Knowledge Engineering Laboratory with a strong technical background. In the early development of Recurrent AI, these three co-founders jointly promoted the company’s technological innovation and market expansion. However, as Yang Zhilin and Zhang Yutao decided to establish Moonshot AI, their relationship with Circulate Intelligence and its investors gradually became tense.

The above-mentioned insiders said that the arbitration application may have originated from the fact that before obtaining the consent waiver from several investors of Recurrent AI (GSR Ventures, Eminence Ventures, Boyu Capital, WestSummit Capital, and Zoo Capital), Yang Zhilin and Zhang Yutao had already initiated financing and established Moonshot AI.

Since its establishment, Moonshot AI has attracted much attention, and its financing process has been quite tortuous. From early investments by Sequoia China and Capital Today to a huge financing of nearly 1 billion US dollars from Alibaba, Moonshot AI’s valuation has rapidly increased, making it one of the highest-valued unicorns in the market.

SEE ALSO: Moonshot AI Secures $300 Million in Latest Funding Round, Boosting Valuation to $3.3 Billion

Public data shows that Moonshot AI raised $200 million in its first round of financing, $1 billion in its second round, and over $300 million in its third round. The total amount raised has exceeded 10 billion yuan. Within just 350 days of its founding, Moonshot AI rose to become a unicorn enterprise with an estimated value as high as 23.6 billion yuan.