DeepSeek Raises $15 Billion in Record China AI Fundraising Round
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is wrapping up a funding round worth about 100 billion yuan ($14.98 billion), Reuters reported on October 22 — the largest single AI funding round from a Chinese lab.
Battery giant CATL and Tencent, which runs WeChat, are among the biggest investors. Home-appliance maker Midea, food delivery platform Meituan, automaker Geely and chipmaker GigaDevice joined as new investors, alongside Boyu Capital, CPE, Legend Capital and existing shareholder IDG Capital — more than 15 investors in total. The raise doubles DeepSeek's original target of 50 billion yuan and values the company at about 500 billion yuan before the new capital.
The round also signals DeepSeek is edging toward public markets: in September it hired CITIC Securities to prepare for a possible IPO on Shanghai's STAR Market. Last month the company released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, a faster model designed to scale to larger systems.
Backed by state funds and corporate giants, DeepSeek is positioning itself as China's main challenger to OpenAI and Anthropic in the AI race. The fundraising is expected to close in the coming days, though final details could still change.
Source: Reuters — read more
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