StepFun Raises $7 Billion in Funding, Appoints Yin Qi as Chairman Amid AI Device Push

Shanghai-based AI startup StepFun announced it has raised over RMB 50 billion (approximately $7 billion) in a B+ funding round, marking the largest single financing event in China's large-model sector over the past year. Concurrently, the company appointed Yin Qi, an established AI entrepreneur, as chairman to oversee strategic direction and technology development. The funding was led by institutional investors including China Life Private Equity Investment, Pudong Venture Capital, and Xuhui Capital, with continued participation from existing backers Tencent, Qiming Venture Partners, and 5Y Capital.

According to the announcement, Yin Qi will collaborate with CEO Jiang Daxin and technical leadership to advance StepFun's dual focus: developing foundation models while pushing commercialization through device integration. The company claims its proprietary algorithms and system architecture deliver industry-leading performance in language models, multimodal systems, and edge-cloud coordination. StepFun's R&D follows a "1+2" framework: sustained investment in large language foundation models (with its Step 3 model claiming superior inference efficiency) alongside parallel development of multimodal capabilities spanning speech and vision.

Recent technical milestones include December 2025's release of an open-source GUI model designed for deployment across smartphones, vehicles, and PCs via edge-cloud collaboration. In January 2026, StepFun's Step Audio R1.1 speech model reportedly ranked first on the Artificial Analysis benchmark, though independent verification of testing methodology wasn't provided. The company emphasizes practical deployment over pure research metrics, claiming API calls for terminal-based agent services grew 170% quarterly throughout 2025.

Commercial implementation appears concentrated in two sectors:

1. Smartphones: Partnerships cover approximately 60% of China's leading handset brands including OPPO, Honor, and ZTE, with models pre-installed on 42 million devices serving 20 million daily users
2. Automotive: Collaboration with Qianli Technology and Geely produced the AgentOS smart cockpit featuring end-to-end voice modeling. The Geely Galaxy M9 sold nearly 40,000 units within three months of launch and has expanded to international markets. StepFun projects deployment in over one million vehicles during 2026.

The funding coincides with China's large-model sector transitioning from broad experimentation to consolidation among leading players. While the capital infusion and executive appointment signal strong investor confidence, several questions remain unanswered: specific performance benchmarks for Step 3's "industry-leading" efficiency, energy consumption metrics for edge-device deployment, and scalability challenges for automotive integration. StepFun's device-focused strategy avoids direct competition with cloud-centric giants but introduces complex hardware-software optimization hurdles that will test its system-level claims as deployments scale.