MiniMax

Shanghai, ChinaFounded 2021

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MiniMax is a general AI technology company founded with the mission to co-create intelligence with everyone, dedicated to achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) through multimodal foundation models capable of understanding and generating text, audio, images, video, and music.

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Founding Story

MiniMax was founded in December 2021 by Yan Junjie and three other former SenseTime executives. Yan left SenseTime just before its IPO, motivated by a desire to build AI models that could compete with OpenAI and challenge US dominance in AI. He had been tracking OpenAI since 2019, particularly inspired by their Dota 2 achievements. When he initially pitched his vision of building multi-modal AI to China's largest tech companies and investors, many believed it was a fraud. A critical early backer was gaming giant miHoYo. The company was established to build AI capable of processing text, images, audio, and video together, with a focus on making video and audio production faster and cheaper for creators and businesses.

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Leadership

Founders

Yan Junjie

PhD from the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Former Vice President and Executive Dean of the Research Institute at SenseTime for over six years, where he managed 700 engineers. Expert in smart cities, gaming, and facial recognition. Left SenseTime in December 2021 to found MiniMax.

Yeyi Yun (Yun Yeyi)

Graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University. Former Head of Strategy in the CEO office and Director of Innovative Business at SenseTime. Spent four years in the United States and brings operational discipline and global orientation to the company.

Yang Bin

Former computer vision researcher at SenseTime. Co-founded MiniMax in December 2021.

Zhou Yucong

Former computer vision researcher at SenseTime. Co-founded MiniMax in December 2021.

Executive Team

Yan Junjie

Chairman and CEO

36 years old (as of 2026). PhD from Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Former Vice President at SenseTime for 6+ years, managing 700 engineers. Founded MiniMax in December 2021.

Yeyi Yun (Yun Yeyi)

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer

Graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University. Former Head of Strategy in CEO office and Director of Innovative Business at SenseTime. Served as director and COO since December 2022, re-designated as Executive Director in June 2025.

Business Model

Revenue Model

MiniMax operates a dual-sided business model combining consumer applications and enterprise API services. Revenue comes from: (1) Consumer subscriptions for AI-native apps (Talkie, Hailuo AI) with freemium models at $9.99/month for premium; (2) API usage fees for enterprise clients on pay-as-you-go basis; (3) Pre-purchased resource packages for video and audio generation; (4) Subscription plans for developers (Coding Plan). The company practices vertical integration by training proprietary models. Revenue is balanced across three segments (1:1:1): companion AI apps, content generation tools, and API services.

Pricing Tiers

Talkie Premium

$9.99/month

Premium subscription for Talkie AI companion app with ad-free experience

Audio Starter

$5/month

100k credits, 10 voice slots, 10 RPM

Audio Standard

$30/month

300k credits, 100 voice slots, 50 RPM

Audio Pro

$99/month

1.1M credits, 250 voice slots, 200 RPM

Audio Scale

$249/month

3.3M credits, 500 voice slots, 500 RPM

Audio Business

$999/month

20M credits, 800 voice slots, 800 RPM

Video Standard

$1,000/month

3,760 units, 20 RPM, 5% savings

Video Pro

$2,500/month

9,920 units, 30 RPM, 10% savings

Video Scale

$4,500/month

18,900 units, 40 RPM, 15% savings

Video Business

$6,000/month

26,780 units, 50 RPM, 20% savings

Text API (M2.5 Lightning)

$0.30/$2.40 per million tokens

Input/Output tokens. Approximately $1 per hour at 100 tokens/second

Text API (M2.5)

$0.15/$1.20 per million tokens

Input/Output tokens. Approximately $0.30 per hour at 50 tokens/second

Text API (M2.1)

$0.30/$1.20 per million tokens

Input/Output with prompt caching at $0.03 read/$0.375 write per million tokens

Speech API (Turbo)

$60 per million characters

speech-2.6-turbo and speech-02-turbo models

Speech API (HD)

$100 per million characters

speech-2.6-hd and speech-02-hd high-definition models

Video API (Hailuo 2.3 Fast)

$0.19-$0.33 per video

768P 6s ($0.19), 768P 10s ($0.32), 1080P 6s ($0.33)

Video API (Hailuo 2.3/02)

$0.10-$0.56 per video

512P from $0.10, 768P from $0.28, 1080P from $0.49

Music API

$0.03 per track

Up to 5 minutes per music track

Image API

$0.0035 per image

image-01 model generation

Voice Cloning

$3 per voice

Rapid voice cloning and voice design

Public. Listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX: 00100) on January 9, 2026. IPO raised HK$4.82 billion ($618 million) by selling 29.2 million shares at HK$165 per share (top of range). Shares surged 78-100% on first trading day, closing at HK$294, giving the company a market capitalization of HK$89.8 billion. Stock has continued to perform strongly, with reports of 230% surge post-IPO.