MiniMax
Multimodal Foundation Models
- Valuation
- ~US$13.5B market cap at debut (Jan 2026)
- Total Funding
- $850M+
- Profit Status
- Pre-profit,rapid growth
- Employees
- ~600
About MiniMax
MiniMax is a Shanghai-based AI company building foundation models across text, audio, image, and video. It is best known for its Hailuo AI video generator, the MiniMax-01 series of long-context LLMs (up to 4M tokens), and popular consumer apps like Talkie. Backed by Alibaba and Tencent, MiniMax is one of China's leading 'AI tiger' startups and filed for a Hong Kong IPO in 2026.
Company History
Founded 2021 by Yan Junjie, a former vision-AI lead at SenseTime. Built consumer AI companion app Talkie (Xingye in China) to tens of millions of users. Launched Hailuo AI video generator Sep 2024, quickly ranking among the world's top video models. Released MiniMax-01 (Jan 2025) with a 4M-token context window and open weights. MiniMax-M1 reasoning model (2025). Backed by Alibaba, Tencent, and IDG at a ~$4B valuation. Filed for a Hong Kong IPO in 2026.
AI Models & Benchmarks
4 modelsHailuo 02
High-fidelity text-to-video and image-to-video model with realistic physics and cinematic motion. Among the top-ranked video generators globally.
MiniMax-01
Long-context MoE LLM with a 4M-token context window using lightning attention. Competitive with GPT-4o and Claude on benchmarks.
Benchmarks
- MMLU
- 88.5%
- Context length
- 4M tokens
MiniMax-M1
Open-weight reasoning model built on the MiniMax-01 architecture, trained with reinforcement learning for efficient long-form reasoning.
MiniMax Speech
Multilingual text-to-speech and voice-cloning model supporting 30+ languages with expressive control.
Company Timeline
6 milestones- 2021Founded in Shanghai by Yan Junjie (ex-SenseTime)
- 2023Talkie / Xingye AI companion app launches, reaching tens of millions of users
- Sep 2024Hailuo AI video generator launched — quickly ranks among world's top video models
- Jan 2025MiniMax-01 released with 4M-token context window and open weights
- 2025MiniMax-M1 reasoning model; ~$4B valuation with Alibaba/Tencent backing
- 2026Filed for Hong Kong IPO
Funding Rounds
2 rounds| Date | Round | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Series B | $600M | Alibaba, $2.5B valuation |
| 2025 | Series C | $250M+ | Tencent, IDG, $4B valuation |
Products & Services
6- Hailuo AI (video)
- MiniMax-01 (LLM)
- Talkie
- Xingye
- MiniMax Audio
- MiniMax API
People & ecosystem
Key People
- Yan Junjie (Founder & CEO)
- Zhou Yucong (Co-founder)
Key Investors
- Alibaba
- Tencent
- IDG Capital
- Hillhouse
- miHoYo
Competitive Landscape
- Kuaishou
- Runway
- OpenAI
- Zhipu AI
- MoonShot AI