Chinese AI firm DeepSeek closes $15.8B funding round

Chinese AI developer DeepSeek has closed a second funding round of about 105.5 billion yuan, or roughly $15.8 billion, from nearly 30 investors. The figures come from details of the round obtained by The Information, which said the investor list includes "a who's who of Chinese tech investors" along with some of China's most powerful state-backed institutions. Tencent and CATL were again the two biggest backers, according to PANews' summary of the report.panews.io+1

The deal is one of the largest private fundraisings in China's AI sector. It closed about four months after DeepSeek took outside money for the first time, and it adds to the pool of capital Chinese companies and state investors are putting behind a homegrown rival to US labs.

Who wrote the checks

Tencent put in 10 billion yuan in each of DeepSeek's two rounds. CATL Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and its chairman Zeng Yuqun contributed 5 billion yuan in the first round and 10 billion yuan in the second, PANews reported, citing The Information. Other corporate backers included SMIC Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, Meituan, Geely Automobile, Midea Group, Luxshare Precision, Trip.com ↗ 2.67%, vivo and Xiaohongshu. Some of them put in between 1 billion and 3 billion yuan each.panews.io

State-linked investors took a much larger role this time. China's national AI industry investment fund again invested 1 billion yuan. China Mobile, China Telecom, CICC, CITIC Securities and China Life each put in between 2 billion and 8 billion yuan, according to the report. The Information's alert headline said state capital made up 27% of the round, AI Weekly noted. People familiar with the deal said DeepSeek doubled the size of the round partway through because Nvidia ↘ 4.22% keeps raising prices on its high-end chips and because of worries about an AI bubble.aiweekly.co+1

Valuation figures differ

Sources do not agree on what the deal says DeepSeek is worth. The Information's details point to a valuation of about 615.5 billion yuan, PANews reported. Earlier, Reuters said sources had valued the company at 500 billion yuan before the new money came in, as carried by KSL. Quartz cited The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 1.37% as putting the value at about $74 billion going into the final close. Dollar conversions in follow-up coverage range from about $86 billion to $92 billion.tokenpost.com+3

A fast-growing raise

DeepSeek first set a target of 50 billion yuan for this round, and state-backed funds and corporate investors competed for stakes, CNBC reported in early October. Bloomberg first reported the roughly 100 billion yuan total on October 22, TechCrunch noted. That report came two days after the US ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek's technology from their systems.cnbc.com+1

DeepSeek's first round, which closed in June, raised about 50 billion yuan. A regulatory filing showed it gave the company a post-money valuation of more than 350 billion yuan, Caixin reported. Bloomberg has reported that the company is looking at an initial public offering in early 2027, according to CNBC.caixinglobal.com+1