Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek is preparing to raise roughly 50 billion yuan (US$7-9.5 billion) in its first funding round, sources said, with the company’s post-investment valuation expected between 350 billion and 400 billion yuan (US$52-59 billion) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
Founder Liang Wenfeng is personally committing about 20 billion yuan to the round [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Tencent Holdings is considering an investment of roughly 10 billion yuan, while battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) plans to contribute around 5 billion yuan, making them the largest outside investors [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. An anonymous source said, "Tencent and CATL would be the largest external investors in this round" [1].
DeepSeek is negotiating final deals with fewer than 10 investors, including China’s national AI fund, gaming firm NetEase, and e-commerce giant JD.com [1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Hong Kong-based IDG Capital and Monolith Capital are also expected to take part [1, 3, 5, 7]. An anonymous source added DeepSeek expects to complete the funding round in the next few weeks, but financial details could still change [1, 2, 3, 7, 8].
Founded by Liang Wenfeng, who previously funded R&D through his quantitative hedge fund, DeepSeek gained global attention in early 2025 with its V3 and R1 AI models that challenged perceptions of Chinese AI capabilities [1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10]. The company announced its next-generation V4 agent-focused AI model in April 2026, setting a new benchmark for open-source AI, although assessments show it still trails several top competitors in China and the US [4, 8, 10].
DeepSeek has so far avoided external funding but shifted strategy as AI applications demand more complex agents and greater computing power [4, 8, 10]. The company faces challenges sourcing advanced US chips due to Western export controls, which limits its ability to match competitors’ budgets. Analyst Alfredo Montufar-Helu said, "Without the ability to purchase this hardware, they have no reason to match US competitors’ multibillion-dollar computing budgets" [10].
CATL is expanding beyond batteries into AI data center power and energy storage to meet growing demands from AI workloads [1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8]. Tencent, meanwhile, promotes its Hunyuan large model but remains behind ByteDance’s Doubao and DeepSeek domestically. A closer partnership with DeepSeek is seen as a way for Tencent to compete with Alibaba’s in-house Qwen AI model [1, 2, 3, 7].
DeepSeek has not announced plans for an initial public offering yet [1, 2, 3, 7, 8]. The company expects to complete the funding round around early June 2026.
