Kling Raises $2.8 Billion Amid Planned Spinoff From Kuaishou

By Sherry Qin

Kuaishou Technology's Kling has raised $2.80 billion from investors, as the short-video company seeks to spin off and list its artificial-intelligence video unit.

Venture capitalists and other investors have injected 19.04 billion yuan, or $2.80 billion, into Kling, Kuaishou said late Thursday. Additional investors could still join this funding round, potentially taking the total investment as much as $3 billion, it added. Kuaishou's stake in Kling could fall to as low as 68.33% after the capital injection.

The company plans to restructure the AI video unit, which could involve spinning it off and listing it in Hong Kong, people familiar with the matter said in May.

The latest funding round, which has boosted Kling's valuation to $18 billion, is led by CPE, Guofang Investment, BlueFive, Tencent and Citic Securities, the company said.

Amid intensifying competition in China's short-video industry, particularly from bigger rival and TikTok parent ByteDance, investors have been closely watching Kling, which has become an increasingly important part of Kuaishou's business but remains at an early stage of monetization.

Kling has gained popularity thanks to its frequent product updates and affordable pricing. It has developed a series of AI models used to produce movies, ads and social-media content, competing with video-generation tools offered by Google, New York-based Runway AI and ByteDance.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com

Corrrections & Amplifications

This story was corrected on July 3, 2026. Kling has raised $2.8 billion from investors. The earlier version said it had raised $2.04 billion. The error also appeared in the headline.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 02, 2026 22:42 ET (02:42 GMT)