ModelBest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Native name | 面壁智能 |
|---|---|
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Artificial intelligence Natural language processing |
| Founded | August 2022 |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | Li Dahai Liu Zhiyuan |
| Products | MiniCPM series Luca (面壁露卡) VoxCPM Pinea Pi |
| Website | modelbest |
ModelBest Inc. (Chinese: 面壁智能; Pinyin: Miànbì Zhìnéng) is a Chinese artificial intelligence technology company headquartered in the Haidian District of Beijing. Incubated by the Natural Language Processing Laboratory at Tsinghua University, the company specializes in the development of general-purpose artificial intelligence, large language models, and multi-modal AI technologies. The company is best known for its open-source "MiniCPM" model series.[1]
ModelBest was founded in August 2022, emerging as a commercial spin-off from the NLP Laboratory at Tsinghua University. In November 2023, the company launched its multi-modal dialogue assistant, "Luca," to the public.[2] The company has experienced rapid growth in its valuation and financial backing. In April 2023, ModelBest completed an angel round of financing led by the Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu, with participation from Zhipu AI. This was followed by a series A funding round in April 2024, which raised hundreds of millions of RMB from investors including Springhill Fund and Huawei Habo.[3] Subsequent funding rounds occurred in December 2024, led by Loongson Capital, and throughout 2025, involving investors such as Beijing State-owned Capital and CICC Porsche Fund. In January 2026, the company was recognized on the "Future Unicorn 100" list by Cyzone.[4]