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Wency Chen

Ben Jiang

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek is finalising its first external fundraising round, securing over 50 billion yuan (US$7.4 billion) at a valuation of just under US$60 billion, according to people familiar with the matter – marking a six-fold leap from its US$10 billion valuation in April.
The blockbuster round highlights intensifying global competition and a shifting strategy for the AI breakout star, which had previously resisted external capital.
Market-oriented investors and Chinese tech giants have committed about 30 billion yuan to the round, one of the people said.
They include Tencent Holdings, which was expected to invest 10 billion yuan, while NetEase and JD.com were each set to contribute about 3 billion yuan. Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), the world’s largest electric-vehicle battery maker, was expected to invest about 5 billion yuan, one of the people said.
This round was also expected to be joined by a number of venture capital firms, including IDG Capital, Monolith, Loyal Valley Capital and Shixiang Tech, the people said.
DeepSeek’s founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng is reportedly committing around 20 billion yuan of his own capital.

State-backed funds also played a role, although final terms – including which vehicles would provide the capital – have yet to be settled, another source said.
Tencent, NetEase, JD.com and CATL did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. IDG Capital, Monolith, Loyal Valley Capital and Shixiang Tech also did not respond to a request for comment.
While final terms remain subject to change, local corporate filings indicate the deal has progressed beyond preliminary talks.
According to corporate registry service QCC.com, several special purpose vehicles linked to the prospective backers were established in mid-to-late May.
Notably, an entity named Hangzhou Chengce Business Consultation was formed on May 19, sharing DeepSeek’s registered address with CEO Liang listed as the actual controller.
DeepSeek’s move to close the fundraising round came weeks after the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported in early May that the company was expected to soon close its first outside financing round.
Backed by its deep-pocketed parent company High-Flyer Quant, also co-founded by Liang, DeepSeek long rejected external funding to focus entirely on Liang’s pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a type of AI capable of matching human performance.
However, sources told the SCMP that the company shifted its stance to solidify an official valuation in a hyper-competitive landscape. It also wanted to retain talent by providing a clear equity valuation for employees targeted by rivals poaching top-tier AI talent.
DeepSeek disrupted the global tech sector early last year with its open-source V3 and R1 models, showing that advanced AI could be developed at a fraction of the cost of US rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.
The company is continuing this aggressive cost-efficiency strategy with its recently released V4 model, which the company said matched the performance of leading US closed-source models from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic across key areas.
DeepSeek announced a permanent 75 per cent price cut for its V4 Pro model in May, pursuing better cost-efficiency – now as low as US$0.0036 per 1 million cached input tokens, and US$0.87 per 1 million output tokens.
DeepSeek’s expansion aligns with Beijing’s push for domestic hardware integration.
The V4 model has sparked a race among Chinese chipmakers to optimise their hardware. Huawei Technologies has announced full adaptation of V4 to its Ascend 950PR platform, alongside adaptations from domestic chip designers Cambricon and MetaX.
DeepSeek said at the time of V4’s release in April that prices would “drop significantly” in the second half of the year as Huawei’s Ascend 950PR supernodes “ship at scale”, though the AI platform has experienced intermittent service disruptions since the V4 roll-out.


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DeepSeek’s founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng is reportedly committing around 20 billion yuan of his own capital


DeepSeek’s founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng is reportedly committing around 20 billion yuan of his own capital.


DeepSeek nears US$7b haul in first-ever funding round, with backing from Tencent, CATL

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}DeepSeek’s founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng is reportedly committing around 20 billion yuan of his own capital

DeepSeek’s founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng is reportedly committing around 20 billion yuan of his own capital