SenseTime Co-Founder's AI Startup Secures Seed Funding for Interactive Characters
Kuqiqi Technology (Coolqq.com), an AI hardware company focused on interactive characters, has successfully completed a seed funding round of tens of millions of yuan. The round was led by the Shanghai Pudong Artificial Intelligence Seed Fund, with participation from SenseTime and Lingyi Ventures. Spruce Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor. Founded in 2025, Kuqiqi was established by Xu Chengheng, SenseTime's 001st employee and a former student of Professor Tang Xiaoou. Xu was instrumental in developing SenseTime's early facial recognition technology. He also previously served as CTO at Ling Universe, where he led the AI education product 'Ling.'
The company's core product, 'CookiePi Interactive Companion,' is a distributed, multi-terminal interactive system. Multiple AI companions are integrated into various home environments, proactively engaging users in conversation and even improvising dramatic scenarios. The system comprises a 'Cookie' trigger and 'Pi' character units, designed to be small and adaptable to physical objects like dolls, figurines, and household items, enabling digital lifeforms to exist in tangible forms. Kuqiqi's development focus diverges from the industry norm of prioritizing dialogue quality. Instead, Xu believes the enduring value lies in the user-created character identities and the relationships formed, rather than transient chat logs. Early testing revealed users developing strong emotional attachments to their AI characters.
The AI character engine, K.ALife OS, maintains three key files: character identity and soul, user identity and relationship, and interaction history and shared memories. This allows characters to evolve realistically, becoming more than static prompts. Unlike traditional AI companions that offer a uniform experience, Kuqiqi's 'loop' architecture ensures each user interaction refreshes the character's memory, preferences, and state, leading to unique, unrepeatable digital beings. This approach aims to create AI companions that offer stress-free, proactive, and high-quality companionship, moving beyond simple 'virtual humans' to entities that stand with users without judgment. The company is preparing for its fourth paid user test on July 31st, with plans to release its first batch of ready-to-ship products.
AI's evolution from a tool to a companion is a significant societal shift, driven by companies like Kuqiqi that prioritize persistent digital identity and user-generated character assets over transient conversational quality. This approach addresses a potential market gap for deeper, more meaningful human-AI interaction, moving beyond the limitations of prompt-based systems. The success of this model hinges on the scalability of its distributed hardware architecture and the AI's ability to maintain unique character evolution under mass adoption. The long-term implications involve redefining personal digital relationships and the potential for AI to become deeply integrated into the fabric of daily life, raising questions about data ownership, emotional dependency, and the nature of companionship in the digital age.
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