Meituan will control 100% of Light Year after completion of the deal.
Food-delivery giant Meituan has jumped onto the bandwagon of ChatGPT by acquiring its co-founder's artificial intelligence startup Light Year.
According to the company's stock exchange filing on Thursday, the total deal includes $233.7 million in cash, 366.9 million yuan ($50.66 million) worth of debt and a payment of $28 million to the AI firm's previous investor HongShan.
Meituan said that the acquisition, which will give it access to leading artificial general intelligence (AGI) technology and related Light Year talent, will help it to compete in the rapidly growing AI sector, according to the filing.
Light Year was founded by Wang Huiwen, Meituan's co-founder and its former non-executive director, in February this year. Wang, 44, was one of the first high-profile Chinese tech entrepreneurs to jump into the generative AI space to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Wang resigned as the non-executive director on Sunday due to health reasons. According to media reports, Wang Huiwen was diagnosed with depression, which sparked a discussion on entrepreneurs’ mental health issues in China’s tech community.
Sources: China Daily, TechCrunch, SCMP
