Edge-LLM maker ModelBest files for IPO at ¥20B
China's on-device AI champion is heading to public markets: ModelBest, the Beijing startup behind the MiniCPM family of edge models, has formally begun the process of listing on the A-share market — the latest sign that China's model labs are treating public listings, not venture rounds, as the endgame.
ModelBest filed its IPO counseling registration with the Beijing bureau of the securities regulator on August 11, with CITIC Securities guiding the process, according to Chinese financial media. The company — founded in 2022 by researchers from Tsinghua University's NLP lab, including co-founders Liu Zhiyuan and Zeng Guoyang, and run since 2023 by Zhihu's former CTO Li Dahai — raised more than 5 billion yuan in the first half of 2026 and is now valued at over 20 billion yuan (about $2.8 billion), roughly triple where it stood in April, when a round led by Shenzhen Capital made it a unicorn.
What makes the filing notable is what ModelBest sells. Where most Chinese labs chase frontier-scale cloud models, ModelBest bet early on putting small models in devices — a bet its backers, which include Zhihu, seed investor Zhipu, Huawei's Hubble fund, and China Telecom, have watched pay off. Its MiniCPM family has surpassed 43 million downloads and in July entered Samsung's flagship phone supply chain, the first domestic edge model to land inside a major international handset maker. The company also counts six auto brands as customers — among them Geely, Changan Mazda, and SAIC Volkswagen — and expects its models to ship in 300,000 vehicles by the end of the year, with a robot-focused MiniCPM-Robot series open-sourced at WAIC in July.
The timing lines up with a wider wave. Shanghai's stock exchange published rules in June creating a STAR Market listing path tailored to AI model companies, and Zhipu — Hong Kong-listed in January — is pushing an A-share listing with a planned 15 billion yuan raise, while MiniMax, also HK-listed, filed its own STAR Market counseling in May. ModelBest would be the first pure on-device LLM company to reach China's public markets, and CEO Li Dahai argues the category has room: drawing on the autonomous-driving playbook, he expects third-party vendors to supply 70% of the future edge-AI market, with device makers' in-house models a minority. The risk to that thesis is visible in the same supply chains — Xiaomi, for one, is doubling down on its own MiMo model — and the prospectus will show whether small-model margins can justify a 20-billion-yuan price tag.
What to watch: the counseling phase typically runs for months, and the first financial disclosures will show whether edge-LLM economics are real or aspirational.
Do you buy the third-party edge-AI story, or will phone and car makers keep models in-house? Tell us in the comments.
