StepFun - Company Profile

AI startup developing large language model solutions. StepFun (official name: Shanghai Jieyue Xingchen Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd) is a prominent Chinese artificial intelligence startup specializing in developing multimodal large language models (LLMs). Founded in April 2023 and headquartered in Shanghai, it has quickly become known as one of China’s "AI Tigers" (a term for the country's most promising AI startups), competing with global leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic. Core Focus & Technology- StepFun is focused on the path to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) by building models that can process and generate multiple types of data simultaneously, including text, image, video, and audio. Multimodal Models: Their "Step" series includes models like Step-1V (multimodal) and Step-2, which is reported to be a trillion-parameter model—a massive scale designed to handle complex reasoning. Video and Audio: They have released state-of-the-art open-source models such as Step-Video-T2V (text-to-video) and Step-Audio (voice interaction). Physical AI: Unlike some competitors who focus solely on chatbots, StepFun emphasizes "AI + Terminals," integrating their technology directly into hardware like smartphones (Oppo) and electric vehicles (Geely). Leadership & Backing Founder : The company was founded by Jiang Daxin, a former Vice President at Microsoft and a renowned expert in search and NLP (Natural Language Processing). Investors: In early 2026, the company raised over $700 million USD in a Series B+ round. Its backers include major tech giants and venture firms like Tencent, Alibaba, Qiming Venture Partners, and 5Y Capital, as well as several Chinese state-owned investment funds.