Competition in the domestic AI large-model track is fierce, and heavy news recently came out: the cutting-edge AI company Step Star has completed hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, led by Fortera Capital, followed by Tencent, Qiming Venture Partners and others. This company, which was founded just over a year ago, has quickly become the focus of the industry with its breakthrough progress in the field of multi-modal large language models. The parameters of its Step-1V model have exceeded 100 billion, and the parameters of the upcoming Step-2 model will exceed one trillion, demonstrating strong technical strength and development potential. This round of financing will help Stepstar to further enhance its multi-modal capabilities, develop new consumer products, and consolidate its leading position in the AI field.
China's cutting-edge large-scale AI model company Step Star has recently received heavy news that it has completed hundreds of millions of dollars in financing. This round of financing was led by Fortera Capital, a private equity investment institution under the Shanghai State-owned Capital Investment and Operation Platform, with participation from well-known institutions such as Tencent and Qiming Venture Partners.
This AI company, which was established just over a year ago, was founded in April 2023 by Jiang Daxin, the former chief scientist of Microsoft Research Asia. As a leading domestic AI model developer, Step Star has made breakthrough progress in the field of multi-modal large language models.
Earlier this year, the company launched the Step-1V multi-modal large model with more than 100 billion parameters, and the Step-2 model currently being tested is expected to exceed the trillion-parameter mark. In the field of large language models, parameter size is a key indicator to measure model performance. A larger number of parameters means that the model can adapt to more complex data patterns and make more accurate predictions.
The company stated that funds from this round of financing will be used to enhance multi-modal capability building, advance the advanced reasoning capabilities of the model, and launch new consumer products based on the basic model.
It is worth noting that Step Star’s financing represents the continuation of the investment boom in China’s AI field. Just a week ago, Zhipu AI also announced the completion of RMB 3 billion in financing. Investors also include a number of state-backed investment institutions, Tencent, Alibaba, Qiming Venture Partners and Lenovo Ventures. According to Chinese media reports, Zhipu AI’s valuation has exceeded 20 billion yuan after this round of financing.
This series of financing shows that China is accelerating its layout of the AI track. The joint entry of state-owned capital and technology giants will inject strong impetus into the development of domestic AI technology.
The huge financing of Step Star, as well as the continued hot financing of other domestic AI companies, indicates that China's AI industry is ushering in a new stage of vigorous development. This is not only an affirmation of the technological strength of Step Star, but also a positive outlook for the future development prospects of China's AI. It is believed that driven by capital and technology, China's AI industry will continue to innovate and contribute to global AI development.