(Yicai) March 12 -- AIsphere, an artificial intelligence text-to-video startup, has raised USD300 million, making it the biggest funding round to date in China’s video-generation sector, according to report by LatePost.

Beijing-based AIsphere initially planned to raise USD100 million in the C-round fundraiser but hiked the target due to strong interest from both domestic and foreign investors, LatePost cited co-founder Xie Xuzhang as saying. It will use the money for research and development, exploring new businesses, and expanding into global markets. 

Investors included Ruyi Holdings and 37 Interactive Entertainment from the cultural and entertainment sector, and local government-backed E-Town Capital and Suzhou Capital Group. Overseas participants included Lion X Fund under Singapore’s OCBC Bank and UOB Venture Management under United Overseas Bank.

AIsphere raised USD60 million in a B-round financing last September and CNY100 million in a B+ round in October. 

The company has more than USD40 million in annual recurring revenue at the end of last year, and the user base of its app, called PixVerse overseas and Paiwo AI in China, exceeded 100 million in October, with more than 16 million monthly active users. 

AIsphere released PixVerse R1 in January, a model designed for real-time video generation and continuous scene extension using an autoregressive architecture.

Xie described it as one of the directions for exploring "world models," and said the company is considering evolving R1 into an AI-native video game engine, an idea that has already drawn inquiries from clients in the gaming and short-drama sectors.

Addressing the attention being given to Seedance 2.0, a rival product from TikTok owner ByteDance, Xie said the competitive impact on AIsphere has been limited. He said the consumer AI video-generation market is far larger than widely assumed and is still far from reaching a stage of direct competition.

AIsphere primarily targets global markets, while Seedance is focused mainly on Chinese users, Xie added.

Editor: Tom Litting