IT之家 October 6 news: According to Bloomberg, DeepSeek's new round of financing is about to be finalized, with the amount raised reaching at least 80 billion RMB, far exceeding its original fundraising target. This financing will also pave the way for the company's planned milestone IPO in early 2027.
Sources said CATL and Tencent are among the largest investors in this round, and the deal is expected to close soon. DeepSeek's original fundraising target was about 50 billion yuan; but after the successful launch of its latest AI model, investor enthusiasm for subscriptions far exceeded expectations. Sources added that, according to the signed term sheets, the final total of this round could approach 100 billion yuan.
This funding lays the groundwork for what will be one of the most closely watched domestic listing processes in China in the coming years. Since the launch of the V4‑Flash model, the company has shown strong momentum; the model has reshaped the industry's perception of cost-effectiveness and can already compete with leading overseas vendors such as Anthropic and OpenAI. It is another highlight moment in founder Liang Wenfeng's entrepreneurial journey; the startup first made its name through technical breakthroughs since launching a large model in 2025, when it achieved comparable model capabilities at costs far below those of Silicon Valley peers.
Like other AI companies, DeepSeek needs huge amounts of capital to support its ambitious development plans for this technology with transformative potential. The company is building a large data center in Inner Mongolia, where it plans to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei high-end AI accelerator chips, potentially creating one of the largest Huawei AI chip computing clusters to date. DeepSeek has also publicly released software co-developed with Huawei for programming AI chips, collaborating deeply with the hardware vendor and formally entering an entirely new business area. Meanwhile, its competitor Moonshot (月之暗面), after completing a funding round valuing it at 50 billion US dollars (IT之家 note: approximately 335.723 billion yuan RMB at current exchange rates), has likewise set its IPO target for early 2027.
According to Bloomberg, Liang Wenfeng stated at at least one investor meeting this year that while moving toward the long-term goal of achieving artificial general intelligence, he will continue to persist in developing open-source AI models. The hedge-fund-born executive made clear that his primary goal is to keep pushing the boundaries of technology rather than prioritizing commercial monetization.
Sources said that although negotiations for this round are nearing completion, some deal details could still change in the final stage of discussions. DeepSeek had originally hoped for a valuation of about 500 billion yuan RMB for this round.
DeepSeek has attracted a large number of potential investors, and it is among the core Chinese companies participating in the global AI competition. Sources said that after this round is completed, the company will next launch a business restructuring to prepare for the IPO.
Tencent was already the startup's largest investor in the previous round, contributing 10 billion yuan. Tencent hopes to integrate AI capabilities into its various product platforms. CATL, meanwhile, may be optimistic about the computing power components market for data centers and other scenarios, hoping to position itself in this increasingly booming market.
After DeepSeek completed its first external funding round this summer, Liang Wenfeng's personal net worth more than doubled to about 36 billion US dollars (approximately 241.721 billion yuan RMB at current exchange rates). This AI startup grew out of his hedge fund High-Flyer Quant, which also provided most of the resources during its early development. Liang Wenfeng himself also contributed in the previous funding round of 50 billion yuan, when DeepSeek was valued at about 350 billion yuan RMB.