Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has reportedly closed a second funding round twice the size of its original target. Citing The Information, 21st Century Business Herald and ifeng report that the second round raised 105.5 billion yuan (about $15.8 billion) from nearly 30 investors. 21st Century Business Herald puts the post-money valuation at 615.5 billion yuan (about $86 billion). DeepSeek has not commented in these reports.
Who invested
- Tencent and CATL were the biggest investors at 10 billion yuan each. Tencent also put in 10 billion yuan in the first round. CATL and its chairman invested 5 billion yuan in round one.
- Memory maker CXMT and its chairman, and the state-owned foundry SMIC, took part, but their amounts weren't disclosed.
- vivo, Meituan, Geely, Midea, Luxshare, Trip.com and Xiaohongshu each invested between 1 billion and 3 billion yuan.
- China Mobile, China Telecom, CICC, CITIC Securities and China Life invested 2 billion to 8 billion yuan each.
More state money
State-backed investors supplied about 27% of this round, up from 2% in the first. Across both rounds, tech companies contributed about 42% and state investors about 19%.
Why the round doubled
DeepSeek reportedly doubled the round from its original 50-billion-yuan target. ifeng, citing The Information, reports that during the four months of fundraising, the price of a server with eight Nvidia B300 chips rose from about 15 million yuan to 19 million yuan. Both outlets say the extra money also prepares DeepSeek for a possible AI bubble burst. For Tesla watchers, it's another sign of how much Chinese capital, including automaker and battery money from Geely and CATL, is flowing into AI compute.
