The Beijing-based startup said it also secured investment from Baidu Ventures and Luminous Ventures, though it did not disclose its valuation, News.Az reports, citing Bloomberg.
The latest funding comes just two months after ShengShu, the developer behind the Vidu video generator, raised an additional 600 million yuan.
Vidu is part of a capital-intensive race to build advanced video generation tools, competing with major tech players such as ByteDance, Alibaba, and Kuaishou Technology, alongside emerging startups like PixVerse, which is also backed by Alibaba. These companies are working to fill the gap left after OpenAI halted development of its Sora project to prioritize its core GPT models.
Earlier in the week, the debut of a new AI video generator called Happy Horse — whose developer has yet to be identified — sparked a surge of investment activity in Chinese AI stocks. Speculation that the tool originated from a domestic firm fueled interest, especially after it outperformed ByteDance’s Seedance 2 to become the top-ranked text-to-video service on the Artificial Analysis benchmark.
ShengShu’s Vidu Q3 model had previously ranked among the top systems upon its release in January and is currently positioned ninth on that list. The model supports up to 16 seconds of synchronized audio and video generation, along with multishot composition and camera control capabilities.
Alibaba remains one of the most active investors in China’s artificial intelligence sector, aiming to drive demand for its cloud computing services, which have surpassed e-commerce as its fastest-growing business segment.
Founded in March 2023, ShengShu was established by Zhu Jun, a professor at Tsinghua University, who serves as the company’s chief scientist. Early investors include Qiming Venture Partners, Baidu Inc., and a Beijing government-backed fund. In 2025, ShengShu reported more than tenfold growth in both users and revenue, though it did not provide exact figures.
Vidu has expanded its reach to users in more than 200 countries and regions, serving industries such as animation, advertising, and film. In December, ShengShu open-sourced Motus, a new line of AI models designed to help robots and other intelligent systems better interpret and interact with real-world environments. The company also said it has signed agreements with AI hardware and model developers to deploy the technology.
According to the statement, ShengShu plans to use the newly raised funds to further develop a general world model as it continues to expand its capabilities in AI video generation.
