DeepSeek leads $400M robot-AI seed round for ex-Tencent scientist's lab
What's the deal? DeepSeek is leading a seed round for Winverse AIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a months-old startup building AI for robots, that values the firm at about $400 million after the investment, according to people familiar with the matter. Meituan's Long-Z InvestmentsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → is among the other backers. The round is sized in the tens of millions of dollars and hasn't been finalised.
Who's behind it? Winverse was founded in 2026 by Hu Han, formerly lead scientist on Tencent's vision-language and embodied foundation model teams. He holds a PhD from Tsinghua University and previously worked at Microsoft Research AsiaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Baidu.
Why now? DeepSeek is close to securing at least US$11B in fresh funding, blowing past its target ahead of a market debut in early 2027. That capital was intended for model training and data centres, but may now also bankroll a new generation of startups for co-development.
What's the endgame? The deal pushes DeepSeek beyond chatbots into real-world applications such as humanoid robots on factory floors. It builds on an earlier move: DeepSeek bought a 2% stake in Unitree Robotics's Shanghai listing to collaborate on embodied-intelligence models.
The expansion angle: China leads the world in building robot hardware, a dominance amplified by Unitree's $900 million listing in August. But making robots intelligent enough to respond to speech and solve real-world problems requires different AI models than those behind ChatGPT — the gap Winverse aims to fill.
What could go wrong? Capital is less abundant in China than in the US, where rivals Skild AIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Physical Intelligence — building general-purpose brains for robots — are valued at $14 billion and $5.6 billion, backed by Nvidia and AlphabetDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Winverse's $400 million valuation starts far behind.
The signal: Hu belongs to a wave of Chinese AI researchers leaving big tech to launch specialised labs, many focused on world models for robotics and autonomous driving. With DeepSeek now deploying its own war chest as an investor, China's AI leaders are moving from building models to funding the ecosystem around them.
Read more: Bloomberg
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
