Yanyu Technology (Evoken), the parent company of AI creative content platform LiblibAI, has closed a...
The AMW Read
The $300M round is the largest single AI application-layer financing in China, and the revenue growth ($300M ARR with 3,000% YoY) moves the segment from hype-driven to revenue-validated — a structural update for the entire application layer.
Yanyu Technology (Evoken), the parent company of AI creative content platform LiblibAI, has closed a nearly $300 million Series B+ round at a post-money valuation exceeding $2 billion. The round was co-led by Granite Asia, Tencent, and Shunwei Capital, with participation from HT Investment and Times Capital, and follow-on support from existing backers including Gaorong Capital, Ant Group, and Sequoia Capital China. The company now operates as a unified group under the Evoken brand, bundling LiblibAI, its AI video product LibTV, and its design agent Xingliu into a single AI creative content production suite.
Why this matters in the AI market. This funding round is the largest single tranche raised by a Chinese AI application-layer company to date, but more telling is the revenue trajectory: Yanyu has reached $300 million ARR as of May 2026, with year-over-year revenue growth exceeding 3,000%. LibTV, launched in March 2026, saw revenue spike 13x in two months and crossed $1 million in daily revenue within its first month. The company now serves over 30 million cumulative users, with one in three Chinese designers using LiblibAI for creative work. This data points to a structural shift in the AI application market: the era of experimentation and traffic-grabbing is ending, and revenue- and retention-based business models are now the primary signal for investor conviction.
The expert take. The Yanyu case updates a key pattern in the AI creative media segment — specifically the "fastest-ARR-ramp" pattern and the "community-as-infrastructure" moat. Unlike single-product AI tools that peak and fade, LiblibAI functions as a creator ecosystem and asset repository, powering downstream products like LibTV and Xingliu. This multi-product, revenue-validated approach is precisely what the AI application layer has been lacking: proof that AI can embed itself into professional production workflows (short drama teams, ad agencies, film studios) rather than remaining a consumer novelty. The capital structure — with Tencent, Ant Group, and Sequoia China all doubling down — signals that Chinese institutional investors are now backing application-layer winners on the basis of revenue traction, not model benchmarks.
