DeepSeek is on the verge of completing a funding round of more than 80 billion yuan (€10.6 billion), far exceeding its original target of 50 billion yuan (€6.6 billion). According to Bloomberg, this sharp rise in investor interest follows the widely praised launch of the company’s latest AI model.
Sources close to the deal suggest that the total capital raised, based on the current agreements, could even reach 100 billion yuan (about €13.2 billion). Major investors include Tencent Holdings, the company behind WeChat, and Contemporary Amperex Technology, a market leader in the battery industry.
This massive financial injection is the prelude to a long-awaited IPO scheduled for early 2027. Under the leadership of founder Liang Wenfeng, the start-up has gained considerable momentum, especially after the introduction of the V4 Flash.
This model has put industry standards for cost efficiency and performance to the test and competes directly with Western giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic. DeepSeek has shown that it is on a par technically with competitors from Silicon Valley, while its operating costs remain significantly lower.
To support its growth and to pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI), the company is investing heavily in infrastructure. This includes building a gigantic data centre in China’s Inner Mongolia region, where DeepSeek aims to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei chips for AI computing. This could create one of the largest clusters of Huawei AI chips in the world.
In addition, the company has worked with Huawei to develop and launch software specifically intended for programming AI hardware.
Despite the commercial potential, Liang has stressed to investors that his primary goal is technological progress rather than immediate profit. In doing so, he is focusing on the ongoing development of open AI models.
This course is in line with that of other domestic rivals, such as Moonshot, which likewise aims for a 2027 IPO after being valued at $50 billion (€44.4 billion). Although the current funding round is almost complete, some final tweaks to the terms may still be made.
Business AM
Ltd
