MiniMax is a general artificial intelligence company founded in late 2021 / early 2022 by Yan Junjie, a former senior executive at SenseTime. The company is headquartered in Shanghai, China, and develops multimodal foundation models alongside consumer and developer-facing AI products.
MiniMax builds models spanning text, audio, image, video, and music generation, exposed through an API platform for developers as well as native applications. Its product lineup includes the MiniMax Agent conversational assistant, Hailuo video generation, and MiniMax Audio for voice synthesis.
The company has raised substantial venture funding from investors including Alibaba, Tencent, and other major backers, reaching a multibillion-dollar valuation and pursuing a public listing as one of China's prominent AI model startups. This capital supports rapid model iteration and international expansion.
MiniMax differentiates itself through a broad multimodal portfolio and aggressive open-source releases of competitive language and vision models, positioning itself among the leading independent Chinese AI labs. Its emphasis on video and audio generation targets fast-growing creative AI markets.
MiniMax serves developers, enterprises, and consumers globally, particularly in content creation, virtual companions, and productivity. It competes with other Chinese frontier labs and global model providers in a market shaped by intense capability competition and evolving regulation.