Bloomberg reported on June 1 that Vast, a Chinese company specializing in 3D model generation, has raised nearly $200 million in a new funding round, pushing its valuation past $1 billion and making it China's newest AI unicorn.
Founder Simon Song, 28, was a co-founder of MiniMax before starting Vast and earlier worked in SenseTime's CEO office. MiniMax is now a leading Chinese large model company. Instead of continuing to compete in text-based large models, Song pivoted to a narrower direction: using AI to generate 3D objects.
What Vast Does
Its product is called Tripo, with the latest version being Tripo 3.0. In a nutshell: you give it text or an image, and it outputs a ready-to-use 3D model. Game props, animated characters, visual effects, product design drafts—things that previously required 3D artists to painstakingly create—can now have a base generated by AI.
The value lies in time savings. For example, generating a 3D virtual scene with a comparable Tencent model takes a few minutes, whereas manual creation used to take weeks.
Customer List Speaks Louder Than Funding Amount
Vast's users fall into two groups:
- About 3 million professional creators, 80% of whom are outside China, with Europe and the US being the largest markets.
- About 40,000 enterprise customers accessing via API.
The enterprise customer list is noteworthy: Tencent, NetEase, ByteDance, Microsoft, Sony, and Pop Mart are all included.
Notably, Tencent has its own Hunyuan 3D model, a direct competitor to Vast, yet it is also a Vast customer. This "both build and buy" situation highlights how diverse and urgent the demand for 3D generation is—no single supplier can satisfy it all.
Song's own words are direct:
"For AI 3D large models, we are the leader in the world."
Translated: when it comes to AI 3D large models, we are number one globally. Bold words, but given his customer list, not entirely unfounded.
Why This Track Is Suddenly Hot
3D generation is not new, but it is clearly heating up in 2026. Competitors are no small players: Tencent's Hunyuan 3D, Google's DreamFusion, and Fei-Fei Li's World Labs—which just raised $1 billion last month to help AI understand the 3D world. Each has a different entry point, but all target the same goal: making "generate 3D" as seamless as generating images or videos.
The logic is straightforward. Gaming, film, e-commerce, and the cash-burning robotics and embodied intelligence sectors all need 3D content. Text-to-image and text-to-video have become red oceans in the past two years; 3D is one of the few gaps not yet filled.
The round was led by Ince Capital and a fund with China Life background, with participation from Genesis Capital, Eminence Ventures, and Primavera Venture Partners. Where money flows indicates market confidence.
Whether Vast can truly hold the "global number one" position depends on whether Tripo 3.0 and future versions can keep advancing. This game has just begun.
Sources: Gen-Z Gamer's 3D-Model Startup Vast Becomes China's Latest AI Unicorn (Bloomberg); CocoLoop; Ex-MiniMax co-founder's Vast aims to challenge Tencent, Google in 3D AI models (The Star)