Chinese AI startup MiniMax posted $116.6 million in first-half revenue for the six months ended June 30, up 283 percent from the same period a year earlier, as enterprise customers increasingly adopt low-cost, open-source-based AI models from Chinese providers positioning themselves as cheaper alternatives to proprietary U.S. systems.
Revenue from MiniMax's Open Platform and enterprise services reached $73.9 million, a 703 percent increase year over year. That segment now accounts for 63.4 percent of total revenue, up from 30.3 percent in the first half of 2025—a structural shift showing enterprise adoption outpacing consumer product growth by more than two to one.
The AI-native products segment, which includes consumer-facing applications and subscriptions, generated $42.6 million, up 101 percent. The divergence in growth rates reveals where MiniMax's economic model is actually working: not with consumers, but with corporate buyers who need inference at scale.
MiniMax's loss attributable to shareholders narrowed to $358 million for the half-year period, down from $402.2 million in the comparable period. At that burn rate, the company is spending roughly three dollars for every dollar of revenue earned. The narrowing loss at least suggests operating leverage is beginning to appear, but only if enterprise growth sustains its current trajectory.
The company's stated strategy mirrors DeepSeek's approach: first build models capable of handling complex tasks, then drive efficiency improvements to lower deployment costs and broaden the addressable market. DeepSeek's R1 model, released earlier in 2026, already forced a global repricing of AI model economics and put pressure on U.S. companies including OpenAI and Anthropic to justify their cost structures.
MiniMax went public in Hong Kong earlier this year, raising about $615 million in its initial listing. The stock nearly doubled on its first trading day. The company then raised an additional $2 billion through a combined share sale and bond issue last month to fund continued growth in its AI business.
MiniMax's 2025 full-year revenue came in at $79 million, up roughly 159 percent year over year and beating analyst estimates of $71.39 million. The jump to $116.6 million in just the first half of 2026 shows the business inflected sharply after its Hong Kong listing. Enterprise adoption accelerated in ways that did not occur when the company was private.
At $116.6 million for six months, MiniMax's annualized revenue run rate sits around $233 million. That figure gives context to capital raises totaling more than $2.6 billion: the company is burning capital well ahead of what current revenues cover. The bond component of last month's raise introduces refinancing risk if revenue growth decelerates before MiniMax reaches operating breakeven.
