MiniMax founder's dedicated journey leads to a $2.4 billion milestone after IPO in Hong Kong

Spectacular Success from Persistent Development of Multimodal AI

On Friday morning at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, MiniMax Group Ltd. officially launched on the public stock market. The most eye-catching figure? The company’s valuation reached $6.5 billion, and shares surged 45% on the first trading day. This boosted CEO Yan Junjie’s net worth— a 36-year-old AI expert— to approximately $2.4 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

MiniMax’s story isn’t about trivial fame. Instead, it’s a challenging journey of a Chinese company choosing to go against the grain. While the entire generative AI industry is racing to develop chatbots to replace ChatGPT, MiniMax has taken a different path: building a unified platform capable of processing text, audio, and video simultaneously.

From Silence to Explosion: MiniMax’s Dedicated Strategy

In its early years, the company operated quite discreetly. Yan Junjie described this period with one word: “Painful.” In a November interview with Bloomberg, he shared: “It took four years to reach this point— the first three years were full of continuous difficulties.”

But that perseverance paid off. When the platform model M2 was launched in October 2025, it quickly attracted the attention of developers worldwide. Currently, MiniMax provides services to at least 212 million users through various consumer applications, including AI avatars and the Hailuo video creation tool.

Hailuo: A Game-Changing Strategic Product

Among MiniMax’s products, Hailuo has emerged as a shining star. This tool allows users to convert text descriptions into six-second high-quality cinematic video clips. Hailuo is widely recognized as one of the few Chinese video platforms capable of standing alongside international products like Runway and OpenAI’s Sora.

Currently, Hailuo is the second-largest revenue source for MiniMax, just behind the chat app Talkie. Its success reflects a genuine demand from content creators both in China and internationally.

From Humble Beginnings to Visionary Goals

To understand Yan Junjie’s unwavering dedication, one must look into his past. Yan grew up in a rural district in Henan Province. During high school, he self-studied advanced calculus because the regular curriculum was too slow. Despite his talent, his initial ambition was modest: he once told friends he just wanted to become a Java programmer at IBM, aiming for an annual salary of about 280,000 RMB (40,000 USD).

A major turning point came when Yan spent six years working at SenseTime Group Inc., a company specializing in computer vision, where he became vice president and deputy head of research.

Gaming Passion Shaping MiniMax

However, Yan’s career took a new direction thanks to an unexpected passion: gaming. Impressed by OpenAI’s AI bots’ success in defeating top players in 2019, Yan began closely following developments in AI and the gaming industry.

His personality— nicknamed “IO,” inspired by input-output and a supporting game character—found common ground with Cai Haoyu of MiHoYo. The MiHoYo team shared the same vision: integrating AI into gaming.

Supportive Investors Backing the Dedication

MiniMax’s rise is no coincidence. The company has received backing from some of the biggest forces in Chinese technology and Hong Kong finance. Prominent investors include Pacific Century Group led by Richard Li (son of Li Ka-shing), and MiHoYo co-founded by billionaire Cai Haoyu.

Additionally, major Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent, along with the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, have invested in MiniMax. This long list of investors reflects strong confidence in the company’s strategic direction.

Financial Challenges and Revenue Performance

Despite many achievements, MiniMax still faces difficulties. In 2024, Yan had to reassess the company’s direction after failing to meet internal goals for monetization and user growth.

According to the IPO prospectus, although revenue increased by 175% year-over-year, MiniMax reported an adjusted loss of approximately $186 million in the first nine months of 2025. The main costs stem from high computational expenses when training “Mixture of Experts” (MoE) models.

Risk Assessment: Expert Perspectives

Edison Lee, head of telecommunications research at Jefferies HK Limited, warns of potential risks: “It’s very difficult to justify the current valuation of these new AI companies, as their revenue is still low and they need strong growth to support such high market capitalization. The biggest risk is whether the US AI market can sustain its growth— if it weakens in 2026, Chinese AI stocks could face significant downward pressure.”

MiniMax’s IPO is not just a financial event— it symbolizes the rise of Chinese AI technology amid global competition. Yan Junjie’s and MiniMax’s dedicated journey will continue to be a focal point for the market.