MiniMax, a Chinese artificial intelligence startup, reported a 283.1% year-over-year increase in revenue for the first half of 2026, totaling $116.6 million. The growth was primarily fueled by a 703.1% surge in revenue from its Open Platform and other AI-based enterprise services, which accounted for 63.4% of total revenue during the period, up from 30.3% a year earlier.
AI-native product revenue rose 100.9% to $42.6 million, reflecting broader demand for low-cost, open-source AI models from Chinese providers. MiniMax, which went public in Hong Kong earlier this year as part of the so-called "AI tigers," positioned itself as a lower-cost alternative to proprietary U.S. systems, targeting scalable deployment through improved performance-cost efficiency.
Despite the revenue surge, MiniMax remained loss-making, though its attributable loss narrowed to $358 million from $402.2 million in the prior-year period. The company raised HK$4.82 billion ($614.86 million) in its initial public offering, with shares nearly doubling on the first trading day. Last month, MiniMax completed an additional capital raise, securing HK$16.04 billion through a share sale and bond issue.
The fundraising underscores investor confidence in China’s AI sector, where firms like MiniMax and DeepSeek compete by offering cost-effective alternatives to U.S.-developed systems. MiniMax’s strategy focuses on achieving high-performance AI capable of handling complex real-world tasks before optimizing efficiency for broader, more affordable deployment.
