Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is set to raise approximately 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) in its first-ever external funding round, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on June 3. The round is expected to value the company at between 350 billion and 400 billion yuan ($52-59 billion) post-investment. Founder Liang Wenfeng has personally committed 20 billion yuan ($2.96 billion), making him the single largest contributor. Among external investors, Tencent Holdings is considering a 10 billion yuan ($1.48 billion) stake and battery giant CATL is looking at 5 billion yuan ($740 million), which would make them the largest external backers. DeepSeek is also in final talks with China’s national AI fund, gaming company NetEase, e-commerce giant JD.com, and Hong Kong-based IDG Capital and Monolith Capital — bringing the planned investor count to fewer than ten. The round is expected to close within the next few weeks, though financial details could still change. Tencent and CATL declined to comment; DeepSeek, Liang, NetEase, JD.com, and the national fund did not immediately respond.
The fundraising marks a fundamental shift for DeepSeek, which has operated entirely on capital from Liang’s quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer since its founding. The company vaulted to global prominence in early 2025 when its V3 and R1 models matched frontier U.S. model performance at a fraction of the compute cost, upending Silicon Valley assumptions about China’s AI trajectory. Reuters noted the investor lineup — spanning a tech conglomerate, a battery giant, a state-backed AI fund, and major internet platforms — reflects China’s broader push to build a self-sufficient AI ecosystem spanning models, compute, and energy infrastructure. For Tencent, a closer relationship with DeepSeek could help it close the gap on rivals ByteDance and Alibaba in AI. The round values DeepSeek at a significant discount to Western peers: Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation in May, while OpenAI’s last round valued it at $852 billion. DeepSeek has made no statements about IPO plans.