Sand.ai

AI · Video Generation · China

Funding

Sand.ai raises $200M Series A+, crosses $1B unicorn valuation

The Beijing startup's half-year revenue was under $3M, showing how richly investors still price standalone video-model research.

• Sand.ai, a Beijing-based AI video generation startup, closed a $200 million Series A+ round on November 5, co-led by CoStone Capital and Shenzhen-listed Wangsu Science & Technology, pushing its valuation above $1 billion.
• Founded in early 2024 by Tsinghua PhD Cao Yue, a former Microsoft Research Asia researcher and Swin Transformer co-author, Sand.ai builds foundation models for video generation, including the MAGI series and audio-visual model GAGA-1.
• Its consumer product VidMuse, a paid tool for music videos, ads and anime content, hit over $10 million in annual recurring revenue within just two months of its January launch.
• The round is Sand.ai's third of 2026, bringing total fundraising to $300 million in just 10 months, following over $100 million raised across two earlier rounds.
• A Shenzhen Stock Exchange filing shows Sand.ai reported about $2.6 million in first-half 2026 revenue against a roughly $22.8 million net loss, underscoring how early-stage the business remains despite the billion-dollar valuation.
• Sand.ai remains far smaller than scaled rivals: Kuaishou's Kling unit closed a roughly $2.9 billion raise in October at a reported $18 billion valuation, with Q2 revenue up more than 200% year-on-year.
• The deal shows investors are still willing to price independent video-model developers separately from the big platforms, betting that specialized research can convert into durable adoption even as compute costs mount.