The argument
The tape · quarterly coverage amplitude · live quarter blinking
MiniMax Group Inc., a Shanghai-based AI lab incorporated in the Cayman Islands, listed on HKEX as 0100.HK on January 9, 2026, one trading day after Zhipu, according to DeadRisk’s listing record. DeadRisk’s market layer records a HK$165 offer price, a HK$345 first-session close and a roughly HK$1,330 March peak. Its October 8 close was HK$207.2: 25.6% above the offer, 84.4% below the peak and 96.4% of the offer-to-peak gain erased. Those three percentages are derived from the stated prices. The close was down 13.7% from the prior session and 37.4% over the provider’s 30-day window.
MiniMax builds M-series language models and consumer apps, including Hailuo for video and image generation and Talkie, a companion-chat app. The Information reported in December 2024 that Talkie was among the most-downloaded AI apps in the US. Reuters’ December filing report put targeted IPO gross proceeds at up to about $538.5M and valuation above $4B. DeadRisk’s deal record puts final gross proceeds at roughly $619M after pricing at the top of a revised range.
DeadRisk’s listing record puts founder Yan Junjie’s equity at about 25% but his voting power near 72% through ten-vote Class B shares. With a second insider, combined control approached 79% of ordinary-resolution votes. The initial six-month tradable float was about 18 million shares, roughly 5% of the company; retail orders exceeded the available tranche by more than 1,000 times. DeadRisk’s instrument record lists an HK-dollar share with no US ADR. Access requires a broker supporting HKEX hours and Hong Kong disclosure rules, not SEC reporting.
TEXXR’s earliest MiniMax mention is a May 3, 2024 Financial Times account grouping it with Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI and 01.ai at valuations ranging from $1.2B to $2.5B. An August 2024 Wall Street Journal report described Chinese startups writing more efficient code while cut off from powerful chips, including Nvidia’s top-end training silicon. MiniMax filed confidentially for HKEX in July 2025. That September, Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery sued over alleged use of copyrighted characters in Hailuo.
Bloomberg’s December 2025 filing account put FY2024 revenue at $30.5M. Its March 2026 report put FY2025 revenue at $79M, up 159% from FY2024 and above a $71.4M analyst estimate. Bloomberg reported a $1.87B FY2025 net loss against $465.2M in FY2024; DeadRisk’s market layer rounds the later loss to $1.9B. By May 2026, MiniMax reported $300M in annualized recurring revenue and began preparing a Shanghai STAR Market listing. ARR is a run rate, not recognized sales. Bloomberg’s August 26 account put H1 2026 revenue near $116.6M, up 283% from roughly $30.4M in H1 2025. The prior-half figure is derived from Bloomberg’s revenue and growth rate. H1 2026 sales were 47.6% above all of FY2025, derived from $116.6M and $79M.
Reuters reported that MiniMax released H3 on July 31, with clips up to 15 seconds at 2K resolution and stereo sound; MiniMax planned to release weights within days. The supplied coverage through October 8 does not confirm that release. On September 3, Bloomberg reported that Humain launched humain-m3, an Arabic-language model developed with MiniMax, amid US-allied concern about Chinese models in sovereign AI.
DeadRisk’s EOD series shows the stock near HK$840 in late May. Its corporate-actions record made 153 million shares, about 49% of the company, eligible to trade at the July 9 lock-up expiry, against the initial 18-million-share float. The EOD series shows declines of 18% on July 9 against July 8 and 12% on July 10 against July 9. Bloomberg reported a financing sought by MiniMax of roughly $2B through shares and convertible bonds. The Information published Yan Junjie’s salary pledge: he would forgo pay until AGI. The EOD and corporate-action records do not identify sellers. The EOD series then shows a HK$303 September 18 close, up 18.9% from the prior session and 3.6% over the provider’s 30-day window.
The spectrogram
Signal decomposition · what the record is made of, by quarter · brightness = share of edges · drift = how far the story moved in meaning
In 2024Q1 the record was 100% financial; by 2026Q1 it is 100% financial. A price chart shows what a name did; the spectrogram shows what its story is made of.
The brains
MiniMax's revenue is rising, but its proposed convertible debt leaves Dalio's repayment test unanswered until issuance and cash-flow terms are clear.
A feedback loop this textbook, running mostly through coverage the English-language record barely priced until the peak.
H3 adds a product milestone, but MiniMax’s losses, proposed financing, and missing cash-flow record still leave Graham’s margin of safety unmeasurable.
The machine
TEXXR’s knowledge graph counts 62 sourced relations involving MiniMax from May 2024 through September 4, 2026. Financial relations account for 33 of 62 (53.2%, derived); launch relations, 19 of 62 (30.6%, derived). A partnership relation records the Humain work. These are counts of recorded coverage, not MiniMax’s operating mix. TEXXR counted eight MiniMax articles in its September 20 snapshot of the then-open 2026 Q3. The completed-quarter count is also eight, or 2.0 times its rolling eight-quarter average of 4.1 articles per quarter (derived: 8 / 4.1).
The graph’s sole MiniMax–DeepSeek relation comes from Anthropic’s February complaint. The Wall Street Journal reported Anthropic’s allegation that MiniMax, DeepSeek and Moonshot violated Claude’s terms through more than 16 million prompts across the three companies. TEXXR’s only direct competitor relation pairs MiniMax with Zhipu, from a June JPMorgan comparison of the listed companies.
The money
Currency: USD.
Order flow is signed before it becomes revenue — the earliest of the three views. From the capital-flow ledger.
The record
- Loss and cash conversion. Bloomberg’s H1 2026 revenue account gives no matching H1 loss or cash-flow figure. DeadRisk’s market layer records FY2025 operating cash outflow of $279.6M versus $258.5M in FY2024, and free cash outflow of $280.6M versus $259.2M. Year-end cash was $507.6M versus $288.9M. H1 sales growth alone does not settle the loss trend.
- Shanghai listing and float. Watch whether the STAR Market preparation reaches an actual filing and listing, and whether reported ownership and turnover show eligible post-lock-up shares entering circulation. Eligibility is not a record of sales.
- Model terms. The Information’s M3 Pro report describes a planned 2.7-trillion-parameter successor to M3’s 428B. The supplied record through October 8 contains no MiniMax confirmation of that count, a release date, license or price. Bloomberg’s August 26 account said M3 lagged Z.ai’s GLM-5.2. H3’s weight license and restrictions also remain unconfirmed in the supplied coverage.
- Comparable economics. The Information’s June 1 M3 account priced input at $0.12 per million tokens versus $5 for Opus 4.7. SemiAnalysis’ October 5 comparison and October 6 analysis use one shared URL and estimate roughly five times more monthly API-equivalent value from Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 subscriptions than OpenAI’s GPT-6.1 Sol plans for agentic workloads. Different models and billing methods make that no MiniMax usage or margin comparison.
- Humain’s commercial terms. Bloomberg’s September 3 report does not disclose customers, model access, safeguards or what MiniMax receives.
For the wider listing wave and compute constraints, see the China AI stack.
| Quarter | Articles | QoQ | Q-end price | QoQ | The record reads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024Q3 | 1 | — | — | — | first quarter on record |
| 2024Q4 | 2 | +100% | — | — | attention rose |
| 2025Q2 | 1 | -50% | — | — | attention cooled |
| 2025Q3 | 2 | +100% | — | — | attention rose |
| 2025Q4 | 4 | +100% | — | — | attention rose |
| 2026Q1 | 11 | +175% | 929.50 HKD | — | attention rose |
| 2026Q2 | 8 | -27% | 417.00 HKD | -55.1% | attention and price fell together |
| 2026Q3 | 8 | +0% | 250.20 HKD | -40.0% | price fell, attention steady |
The peers
MiniMax Group lives or dies by the same constraint as these names — small equal-weighted groups, one constraint each. Not investment products: see all categories.
The other stack — the compute constraint, 2.3 independent bets across 7 names
Sources
Articles - “A look at four Chinese generative AI startups, Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, MiniMax and 01.ai” — Financial Times, May 3, 2024. https://t.co/WEqIpNoJkA · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/864373 - “Chinese AI startups, cut off from the most powerful AI chips, are focusing on monetization, writing more efficient code for LLMs, and building smaller models” — Wall Street Journal, Aug 24, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chips-or-not-chinese-ai-pushes-ahead-31034e3d · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/873655 - “Sources: Character.AI rival Talkie, one of the most-downloaded AI apps in the US and made by China’s MiniMax, prepares an AI video feature” — The Information, Dec 17, 2024. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/a-booming-competitor-to-character-ai-plots-its-next-move · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/880432 - “Sources: Chinese AI startup MiniMax files confidentially for a Hong Kong IPO” — Reuters, Jul 16, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-ai-firm-minimax-files-confidentially-hong-kong-ipo-sources-say-2025-07-16/ · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/887955 - “Disney, Universal, and WBD sue China-based MiniMax, alleging its Hailuo AI service was built from stolen intellectual property” — Reuters, Sep 16, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/disney-universal-warner-bros-discovery-sue-chinas-minimax-copyright-infringement-2025-09-16/ · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/890227 - “Filings: Chinese AI startups Zhipu and MiniMax report 2024 revenue of $44.4M and $30.5M, respectively” — Bloomberg, Dec 22, 2025. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-22/china-s-openai-rivals-unveil-sales-details-ahead-of-stock-debuts · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/893960 - “Filing: Chinese AI startup MiniMax seeks to raise up to ~$538.5M in a Hong Kong IPO” — Reuters, Dec 31, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-ai-firm-minimax-targets-up-539-million-hong-kong-ipo-2025-12-30/ · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1154294 - “MiniMax releases M2.5, claiming the model delivers on the ‘intelligence too cheap to meter’ promise” — MiniMax, Feb 13, 2026. https://www.minimax.io/news/minimax-m25 · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1163398 - “A look at a new generation of Chinese billionaire AI entrepreneurs who keep a low profile” — Bloomberg, Feb 16, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2026-china-ai-billionaires/ · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1163514 - “Anthropic says DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Moonshot violated its ToS by prompting Claude a combined 16M+ times” — Wall Street Journal, Feb 24, 2026. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-accuses-chinese-companies-of-siphoning-data-from-claude-63a13afc · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1163960 - “Shanghai-based MiniMax reports 2025 revenue up 159% YoY to $79M, above $71.4M est.” — Bloomberg, Mar 3, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-02/china-ai-pioneer-minimax-more-than-doubles-sales-in-hot-market · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1164473 - “MiniMax releases M2.7, a proprietary ‘self-evolving’ LLM” — VentureBeat, Mar 20, 2026. https://venturebeat.com/technology/new-minimax-m2-7-proprietary-ai-model-is-self-evolving-and-can-perform-30-50 · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1165586 - “Filing shows Shanghai-based MiniMax has begun preparations for a Chinese IPO; ARR has reached $300M” — Bloomberg, May 31, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-30/minimax-plans-china-ipo-as-it-eyes-local-rivals-like-deepseek · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1169938 - “Chinese AI developer MiniMax debuts M3, a new coding model, at $0.12 per 1M input tokens vs. $5 for Opus 4.7” — The Information, Jun 1, 2026. https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/chinas-minimax-launches-new-model-open-source-ai-coding-battle-heats · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1169983 - “Zhipu’s shares closed up 33% after JPMorgan raised the stock’s price target and picked it as a winner against rival MiniMax” — Bloomberg, Jun 15, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-15/zhipu-shares-surge-48-after-jpmorgan-raises-price-target · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1170937 - “Sources: MiniMax is working on a 2.7T-parameter model internally called M3 Pro” — The Information, Jul 8, 2026. https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/exclusive-chinas-minimax-plans-launch-2-7-trillion-parameter-model · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1172247 - “MiniMax is looking to raise as much as $2B by selling 35.6M shares and offering ~$830M in convertible bonds” — Bloomberg, Jul 10, 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-09/minimax-seeks-1-9-billion-from-share-sale-convertible-bond · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1172371 - “Memo: MiniMax CEO Junjie Yan tells employees he will forgo his salary until MiniMax achieves AGI” — The Information, Jul 10, 2026. https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/minimax-ceo-vows-forgo-salary-achieving-agi · TEXXR record: https://texxr.com/1172392
Edges (TEXXR knowledge graph) - #22482 — regulatory: Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, and 01.ai named as Chinese startups operating in generative AI. - #22483 — financial: the four startups valued between $1.2B and $2.5B. - #49025 — regulatory: Chinese AI startups cut off from the most powerful AI chips. - #58381 — launch/rumored: Talkie, a Character.AI rival, made by MiniMax. - #76028 — financial/rumored: MiniMax files confidentially for a Hong Kong IPO, targeting a $4B+ valuation. - #81281 — legal: Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery sue MiniMax over Hailuo AI. - #97356 — launch: MiniMax releases MiniMax-M2.5. - #97563 — partnership: Yan Junjie pitched MiniMax to China’s largest internet companies four years earlier. - #98425 — controversy: Anthropic alleges DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Moonshot violated its ToS via Claude distillation. - #99430 — financial: MiniMax reports a $1.87B net loss in 2025, up from $465.2M in 2024. - #206128 — launch: MiniMax releases M2.7, a self-evolving LLM. - #236387 — financial: MiniMax reports $30.5M in 2024 revenue. - #401544 — financial: MiniMax begins preparations for a Chinese IPO. - #401545 — financial: MiniMax’s ARR reaches $300M. - #401615 — launch: MiniMax launches M3. - #401616 — financial: MiniMax prices M3 at $0.12 per 1M input tokens versus $5 for Opus 4.7. - #403269 — competitor: JPMorgan Chase picks Zhipu as a winner against rival MiniMax. - #407165 — financial/rumored: MiniMax seeks to raise up to $2B via share sale and convertible bonds. - #407166 — personnel: MiniMax’s founder commits 4% of his personal equity over four years to employee incentives. - #407184 — personnel: MiniMax CEO Junjie Yan says he will forgo his salary until MiniMax achieves AGI.