On 4–5 November 2026, Chinese AI companion studio 自然选择 (Nature Select) closed an A+ financing round that pushed its cumulative raise past $100 million, according to an exclusive by tech outlet 晚点 LatePost and corroborating reports from 张通社 and NetEase/智通财经. The new round drew Morningside Capital (五源资本), Qiming Venture Partners (启明创投), Source Code Capital (源码资本), Matrix Partners China (经纬创投) and Hua Ye Tian Cheng (华业天成).
Nature Select, founded in Shenzhen in 2024 by former game producer Zhang Xiaofan (张筱帆) of the dating-themed mobile game Singularity Era, runs two products: EVE, a 3D emotional-companion app built on its in-house Vibe dialogue model and Echo memory model, and Elys, an invite-only AI-social app whose 'AI clone meets people for you' hook peaked at roughly 100,000 daily actives. The company says the fresh capital goes to model iteration, multimodal interaction R&D and global expansion.
This A+ round is a follow-on to the >$30M round Nature Select closed in October 2026 (led by Alibaba and Ant Group), and it underlines how heavily China's emotional-companion startups keep attracting venture money even as youth-safety rules tighten. See our 2026 industry report for the funding climate across the category.