DeepSeek’s release of V4.1-Flash on September 10th, described as faster and less costly to serve, helped reshape the startup’s fundraising plans as investor interest rose after the model’s successful launch.
On September 24th, Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek’s founder and chief executive, shared a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate with investors. The company is now close to securing at least 80 billion yuan (US$12 billion) in its latest funding round, after initially seeking about 50 billion yuan.
The financing is best read as a bid to secure the capital DeepSeek needs for its next phase in artificial intelligence. Based on signed term sheets, the final total could approach 100 billion yuan. The round has yet to close, so its final size, its full investor list and the commitments of individual backers remain unsettled.
Tencent Holdings, the operator of WeChat, and Contemporary Amperex Technology, the major battery maker known as CATL, have committed among the largest amounts in the current financing. Tencent had already made its biggest investment in DeepSeek in an earlier round, putting in 10 billion yuan, and is seeking to integrate AI into its platforms.
DeepSeek had originally sought a valuation of about 500 billion yuan for the financing. It plans an initial public offering for early 2027, although the planned listing remains ahead of a funding round that is still open.
Liang founded DeepSeek in 2023 after studying engineering at Zhejiang University and co-founding High-Flyer, a quantitative-investment firm. In June, investors in DeepSeek’s first major external round put capital into a limited partnership managed by Liang.
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