DeepSeek funding round hits $15 billion with CATL and Tencent
China's DeepSeek has raised about 100 billion yuan, doubling its original target, as state-linked and industrial investors back a home-grown rival to U.S. AI labs.
The DeepSeek funding round is one of China's largest. The Hangzhou AI lab has raised about 100 billion yuan, or roughly $15 billion, Bloomberg first reported on Thursday, Oct. 22. Reuters, citing four people familiar with the matter, said battery maker CATL and Tencent, both existing shareholders, were among the biggest investors.
What happened
More than 15 investors took part, Reuters said. They include chipmaker GigaDevice, food delivery company Meituan, automaker Geely, appliance maker Midea and existing backer NetEase, along with Boyu Capital, CPE, Legend Capital and IDG Capital. TMTPost reported that DeepSeek raised its target at least twice from 50 billion yuan.
DeepSeek is valued at 500 billion yuan before the new money, sources told Reuters. The round is due to close in the coming days, but details and the investor list could still change, one person said. DeepSeek did not comment.
The lab raised $7.4 billion in its first outside round in June, when investor filings implied a value of about 350.88 billion yuan, or $52 billion, Reuters reported. Last month it released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash.
Why it matters
The timing is pointed. TechCrunch noted the money came just two days after Washington told federal civilian agencies to strip DeepSeek's technology from their systems on security grounds. "Given that they (the investors) are all Chinese and critical component supply chain vendors, I can see DeepSeek itself becoming a key part of these domestic tech supply chains," Omdia analyst Lian Jye Su told Reuters.
The DeepSeek funding round also lands during a global AI selloff that has delayed data center IPOs and hit listed Chinese model makers Z.ai and MiniMax. Rivals are raising too: Moonshot AI secured $2 billion in May, TechCrunch said, and Manus raised $500 million this month. In the U.S., OpenAI's $30 billion raise sets the scale DeepSeek is chasing.
Listed peers show how volatile values can be. Zhipu AI and MiniMax, both public in Hong Kong since January, had market values of roughly $29 billion and $7.2 billion, TechCrunch said, after sharp falls from their peaks. DeepSeek's private price, about $75 billion before the new cash on the reported figures, sits well above both.
Founder Liang Wenfeng, who co-founded the High-Flyer hedge fund, retains an estimated 81.6% of the Chinese operating company, TechCrunch reported, citing WireScreen.
What's next
Reuters reported in September that DeepSeek had hired CITIC Securities to prepare a possible STAR Market listing. On Polymarket, a U.S. government move to remove public access to a major Chinese AI model in 2026 was priced at 18% as of 08:29 MSK on Oct. 23. The TechCrunch report has more on the U.S. restrictions.
A listing would be the next step after this DeepSeek funding round, but timing is the open question.
The call
We call that DeepSeek will NOT complete an IPO by Dec. 31, 2026. Polymarket puts that outcome at 95%. The company is still closing a private round, and a STAR Market float needs filing and review that rarely finish in ten weeks.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Calls are editorial forecasts, logged with market odds at the time of publication and kept on the record.