DeepSeek raises $15B at a $74B pre-money valuation as China's industrial giants bankroll its AI race

What's the deal? DeepSeek has raised about $15 billion (around US$13.8B) at a pre-money valuation of about $74 billion, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal report. TechCrunch calls it one of the biggest funding rounds in China. The Hangzhou lab raised its target at least twice, from an initial US$6.88B. It comes four months after a $7.4 billion round in June at about $50 billion, so DeepSeek has raised more than $22 billion in 2026.

Who's in? Battery maker CATL and Tencent are among the biggest backers. Citing people familiar with the deal, Reuters reports that more than 15 investors took part, including chipmaker GigaDevice, Meituan, Geely, Midea, NetEase, Boyu Capital, CPE, Legend Capital and IDG Capital. Reuters cautioned that the final line-up could still change. Founder Liang Wenfeng held an estimated 81.6% of the Chinese operating company after the June round, according to WireScreen data cited by TechCrunch.

Why the timing matters: The round landed two days after the US ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek's technology from their systems over security concerns. The WSJ reports that DeepSeek is speeding up plans for a Shanghai STAR Market listing as early as 2027. It aims to list before rivals such as Moonshot AI. Zhipu AI and MiniMax already listed in Hong Kong in January.

The bigger picture: China's frontier AI is now funded by its industrial champions: battery, car, appliance and chip companies, plus the big internet platforms. It is no longer just venture money. The $74 billion pre-money valuation is still a fraction of OpenAI's or Anthropic's. But DeepSeek has also open-sourced its serving engine and published cheap per-token economics, so the money backs a strategy of flooding the market with low-cost open models while Washington tries to shut it out.

Sources: Bloomberg · WSJ · Reuters · TechCrunch

Image credit: Thiện Ân