Metaso (秘塔AI) bets China wants ad-free AI search; Ant led a ¥100M+ round at $150M

Metaso builds AI productivity tools from Shanghai — translation, writing, legal search (MetaLaw) and the Metaso AI search engine — keeping search free and ad-free while charging for pro tools.

That Chinese users would switch to an AI search engine with no ads and direct, cited answers — and that lawyers, the hardest-to-please customers, would pay for it first.

Angel round (Mingshi Capital); tens-of-millions-RMB Pre-A in May 2021; Aug 2024: ¥100M+ round led by Ant Group at $150M post-money.

Founded April 2018 in Shanghai by AI scientist Min Kerui (ex-Cheetah Mobile chief scientist, ex-Boson Data CTO) and lawyer Wang Yiwei (Peking University law, 10+ years at Fangda Partners). They reasoned legal documents are so structured that AI would succeed there before creative writing; the company launched paid legal tools and then built its own MetaLL LLM.

Metaso AI search launched early 2024 with no ads and cited answers, plus academic/web modes. It hit 7M+ visits in its launch month and #1 on China's AI growth chart, then 15M visits by June 2024 per SimilarWeb. Growth cooled mid-2024; the company said it prioritizes break-even and user experience. In Aug 2024 Ant Group led a ¥100M+ round at $150M post-money — Baidu and Tencent had also courted the company.

Still running and break-even: Metaso said in 2024 it had reached break-even, kept search free and ad-free, and posted 13.55M monthly visits in Feb 2025 (+145.5% MoM, aibase #12). It has not expanded aggressively or raised big rounds since — a deliberate contrast with the 2023 Chinese LLM funding boom.

Ad-free, cited-answer search directly attacked the worst pain point of Chinese web search: ads and low-quality results.

Starting with lawyers, the pickiest users, forced product quality to 90/100 before scaling to consumers.

The COO's 600K-subscriber Bilibili account gave the company distribution without a media budget.

Break-even-first discipline (paid pro tools, then free search) kept the company independent of the funding boom.

Win the pickiest customers first: legal AI proved the product and paid the bills, while a free ad-free consumer search borrowed credibility; founder-driven distribution beats big-budget launches.

As of 2026-09-02, Metaso is still live and independent: metaso.cn continues to run free, ad-free AI search with academic and deep-research modes, and the paid products (translation, writing, MetaLaw) remain in service. After the Aug 2024 Ant-led ¥100M+ round at $150M post-money, the company did not pursue aggressive fundraising; CEO Min Kerui said commercialization and technology should advance together. Traffic trackers show 13.55M monthly visits in Feb 2025 (+145.5% MoM, aibase #12), and COO Wang's Bilibili channel stayed above 600K subscribers. No exit, shutdown or pivot has been reported.