ShengShu Technology
Category: Foundation Models / LLMs
ShengShu Technology is a Beijing-based multimodal generative AI company developing video generation models (Vidu) and embodied foundation models (Motus/MotuBrain), building toward a general world model that bridges digital and physical domains. ShengShu Technology was founded in 2023. The company is led by Luo Yihang (罗义行). Based in Beijing, China. Team size: 51-200. Total funding raised: $400.0M. Latest round: Series B. Key investors include Alibaba Cloud; Ant Group; Baidu Ventures; Qiming Venture Partners; Zhongguancun Science City; LINK-X Capital (星连资本); Delta Capital (达泰资本); TAL Education (好未来); Zhuoyuan Capital (卓源亚洲); C&D Emerging Investment (建发新兴投资).
- Founded
- 2023
- Headquarters
- Beijing, China
- Team size
- 51-200
- Total funding
- $400.0M
Value proposition
Building the world's first general world model that bridges digital content generation (video/3D) with physical world simulation (robotics/autonomous driving), powered by proprietary U-ViT diffusion transformer architecture.
Products and solutions
Vidu — AI video generation platform (text-to-video, image-to-video, reference-to-video); Vidu MaaS Platform (API for developers/enterprises); Vidu Q1/Q3 Pro models (top-ranked on VBench); Motus — embodied foundation model for robotics; MotuBrain — robot general-purpose brain combining world model prediction with action output; Vidu4D — single video to 4D reconstruction
Unique value
First Chinese company to release a video generation model rivaling OpenAI's Sora (Vidu, April 2024); pioneered U-ViT architecture (Diffusion Transformer) before OpenAI/Google; unique dual-track strategy covering both digital content (Vidu) and embodied AI (Motus/MotuBrain) under a unified world model framework.
Target customer
Global individual creators, professional content producers, enterprises in interactive entertainment, advertising/marketing, film/animation, cultural tourism, and smart hardware; embodied AI/robotics companies for industrial, commercial, and home applications
Industries served
Interactive Entertainment; Advertising & Marketing; Film & Animation; Cultural Tourism & Creative Industries; Smart Hardware; Embodied AI / Robotics; Autonomous Driving
Technology advantage
Proprietary U-ViT (Vision Transformer backbone for diffusion models) architecture published at CVPR 2023 — predating OpenAI's Sora architecture; UniDiffuser (ICML 2023) — first unified transformer for multimodal diffusion; DPM-Solver (NeurIPS 2022) — fast ODE solver for diffusion sampling; strong academic lineage from Tsinghua AI Institute; first-mover advantage in China's AI video space
How they differentiate
Unique dual-track strategy: simultaneously pursuing digital content generation (Vidu) and embodied AI (Motus/MotuBrain) under a unified general world model architecture, unlike competitors focused solely on video generation. Strongest academic AI research team in China's generative AI space (Tsinghua AI Institute). Pioneered U-ViT architecture before OpenAI.
Main competitors
Kuaishou (Kling AI — generated $150M revenue in 2025); ByteDance (Jimeng AI video); PixVerse (backed by Alibaba, $60M); OpenAI (Sora); SenseTime
Key partnerships
Alibaba Cloud (strategic full-stack AI partnership + lead investor); Baidu AI Cloud (Vidu API on Qianfan platform); Strategic partnerships with embodied AI companies for industrial/commercial/home robotics; Honor (smartphone AI video partnership)
Notable customers
ByteDance; Samsung; Wondershare; TAL Education Group; Alipay; Honor; Served 200+ countries/regions via Vidu platform; thousands of enterprise/developer teams via Vidu MaaS
Major milestones
March 2023: Company founded; June 2023: Angel round led by Ant Group ($14M); April 2024: Launched Vidu — China's first Sora-class video generation model; CVPR 2023: U-ViT paper published (Diffusion Transformer backbone); ICML 2023: UniDiffuser published; March 2025: Luo Yihang (ex-ByteDance) appointed CEO; 2025: 10x growth in users and revenue; February 2026: Series A+ of ¥600M ($82M); April 2026: Series B of ¥2B ($293M) led by Alibaba Cloud; Vidu Q1/Q3 Pro models top-ranked on VBench; Launched Motus embodied foundation model
Growth metrics
10x growth in both users and revenue in 2025; Vidu platform serves 200+ countries/regions; thousands of enterprise/developer teams on Vidu MaaS
Market positioning
Leading Chinese AI video generation startup with strong academic pedigree from Tsinghua; positioned as a world model company bridging digital content and physical robotics — differentiating from pure video generation competitors; top-ranked on VBench benchmarks; first-mover advantage over Sora in China
Geographic focus
China (primary), global markets (200+ countries via Vidu platform)
Patents and IP
U-ViT backbone for diffusion models (CVPR 2023); UniDiffuser — one transformer for all multimodal diffusion (ICML 2023); Analytic-DPM (ICLR 2022); DPM-Solver (NeurIPS 2022); ProlificDreamer text-to-3D (NeurIPS 2023); Vidu4D reconstruction (NeurIPS 2024)
About Luo Yihang (罗义行)
Former Head of AI Solutions at ByteDance's Volcano Engine (cloud unit); Tsinghua University alumnus
Official website: https://www.shengshu.com