DeepSeek reportedly raises $15 billion

DeepSeek is said to be closing a massive new funding round, with Reuters reporting that the Chinese AI startup has raised around 100 billion yuan, or $14.98 billion, from both new and existing investors. Four people familiar with the deal shared the figure on Thursday. The final terms are still being worked out, though, and one source said the details could still shift before the round is completed in the coming days.

The investor list reads like a who’s who of Chinese industry. Battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, better known as CATL, and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, were among the biggest backers, according to two of the sources. New participants include Midea, Meituan, Geely and GigaDevice. Boyu Capital, CPE, Legend Capital and existing shareholder IDG Capital were also in the mix, and one source said the total number of investors topped 15.

If the reported figure holds, DeepSeek will have more than doubled its original fundraising target of 50 billion yuan, or about $7.5 billion. That is a striking amount even by the standards of the AI boom, and it points to unusually strong appetite from investors, many of whom have ties to the Chinese state or major corporations.

The round also fits with a larger move toward public markets. Reuters reported in September that DeepSeek had hired CITIC Securities to prepare for a possible listing on the STAR Market. And last month the company introduced DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, which it said is built for better capability, faster inference, higher throughput and scaling to larger models.