Fundraise

Approaching.AI raises hundreds of millions of yuan in pre-A round

What's the deal? Approaching.AI (趋境科技), a Chinese AI token production services provider, has closed a pre-A funding round worth hundreds of millions of yuan. The round was co-led by Starlink Capital and Huakong TechnologyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, with participation from Honghui Capital, Tianhao Energy, Shangshi Capital, Tianjin Renai Hongsheng, and Hangzhou Fucheng. Existing investor Hillhouse Ventures also followed on.

Why now? The company plans to use the fresh capital to scale its AI token-as-a-service platform (ATaaS), with a focus on expanding computing power reserves and building out its underlying inference systems. As demand for large language model inference surges globally, infrastructure providers that can deliver token production efficiently are attracting investor attention.

The signal: Hillhouse Ventures' decision to follow on underscores conviction from one of China's most prominent venture firms, while the presence of strategic backers such as Tianhao Energy hints at crossover interest from sectors with heavy compute demand. As AI deployment shifts the bottleneck from model training to large-scale inference, infrastructure providers that can deliver token production efficiently are emerging as a distinct investment category in China's crowded AI landscape.

Read more: jiemian.com

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