Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has raised about 100 billion yuan (about US$15 billion) in its latest funding round, according to four people with knowledge of the matter who spoke to Reuters. Bloomberg first reported the round on Thursday, October 22, putting it at US$15 billion with battery maker CATL and Tencent as the main backers, according to Reuters.
CATL and Tencent, both existing shareholders, were among the biggest investors, two of the people told Reuters. Other participants include chipmaker GigaDevice, Meituan, Geely, Midea and existing shareholder NetEase, along with Boyu Capital, CPE, Legend Capital and existing shareholder IDG Capital, the people said. More than 15 investors took part, one person said.
DeepSeek is valued at 500 billion yuan before the new capital, sources have told Reuters, or roughly US$75 billion at Reuters’ exchange rate (an AITD approximate conversion). The round would double the company’s original target of 50 billion yuan (roughly US$7.5 billion, an AITD approximate conversion). The fundraising is set to close in the coming days, but the financial details and the investor lineup are not ironclad and could still change, one person told Reuters. DeepSeek could not be immediately reached for comment, Geely declined to comment, and the other companies named did not immediately respond, Reuters said.
“Given that they (the investors) are all Chinese and critical component supply chain vendors, I can see DeepSeek itself becoming a key part of these domestic tech supply chains,” Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, told Reuters.
The Hangzhou-based company raised US$7.4 billion in its first external round in June, Reuters has reported, and filings by two Chinese investors in July suggested a valuation of 350.88 billion yuan (around US$52 billion) at that time. In September, Reuters reported that DeepSeek aimed to start an IPO process this year and had hired CITIC Securities for a potential STAR Market listing. The raise comes during a selloff in global tech stocks this month, and Hong Kong-listed model developers Z.AI and MiniMax have fallen sharply from their earlier peaks, Reuters reported.