Meituan Buys Co-Founder’s Months-Old AI Startup for $234 Million

(Bloomberg) — Meituan is buying a co-founder’s generative AI startup for almost $234 million, a deal that gets the food-delivery giant into a Chinese race to develop ChatGPT-like services.

Meituan agreed to pay that amount in cash while also assuming startup Light Year’s roughly 367 million yuan ($51 million), according to a stock exchange filing. The Chinese company will inherit about $285 million of cash.