DeepSeek’s Annualized Revenue Hits $1 Billion as Startup Finalizes $7.5 Billion Fundraising
Juro Osawa and Qianer Liu report DeepSeek’s annualized revenue run rate has hit $1 billion—more than double from under $500 million a few months ago—per two people with direct knowledge. CEO Liang Wenfeng shared the figure in a recent (Sunday) investor meeting as the company finalizes its second funding round and prepares for a Shanghai Stock Exchange IPO. Target: raise US$6.88B at a US$68.8B valuation by end of October (not closed yet). Growth driven in part by a price hike last month (models 2.3–4.5× costlier) that Liang said did not shrink the customer base; models still among the cheapest major LLMs. V4.1-Flash and V4-Flash cited as agent-capable and globally popular. Gross margin on API access in first seven months of the year previously reported at 82.9% (higher than Anthropic/OpenAI comps in similar periods) via efficient infrastructure. Revenue almost entirely API; free chatbot app generates none. >70% of compute allocated to training vs <30% inference. Liang said smaller models run well on gaming GPUs (could free training chips); expects Huawei training chips as early as Q4 2026 (echoing prior TI report). Comps: Z.ai ARR $1.8B; MiniMax ARR $800M (Aug) from $150M (Feb). Investor overhang: CAC probe of DeepSeek/Moonshot after Anthropic alleged routing of sensitive data to Claude. Caveats: two people with knowledge; fundraise not yet closed; ‘finalizes’ framing in title/takeaway ahead of end-October goal; Huawei timing and gaming-chip path are Liang-stated.
Why it matters
Top-tier China frontier-lab financing and operating update for Dealroom: $1B ARR, ~$75B valuation ask / $7.5B Series-2 timing, API-only monetization + 82.9% gross-margin signal, training-vs-inference split, Huawei Ascend bet, and CAC/Anthropic data-leak overhang—feeds DeepSeek, Liang, Huawei, Moonshot, Z.ai, MiniMax profiles and comps vs OpenAI/Anthropic.
Executive takeaways
ARR ~$1B (vs <$500M months ago); Series-2 aiming ¥50B (~$7.5B) at ¥500B (~$75B) by end-Oct, Shanghai IPO prep—not closed. • Price hike 2.3–4.5× last month; Liang says demand held; API-only revenue; free chatbot contributes $0. • Prior TI: API gross margin 82.9% first 7 months; >70% compute on training. • Domestic-chip pivot: Huawei training chips expected Q4 2026; gaming GPUs floated for everyday inference. • Overhang: CAC investigating DeepSeek/Moonshot after Anthropic data-routing allegations.
What The Information may be missing
Named round participants, soft-circle progress, and whether ¥500B is pre- or post-money not disclosed. No breakout of domestic vs overseas ARR or paid seat vs token mix. Huawei Ascend volume/performance SLAs unspecified. How the CAC probe timing interacts with the October close / Shanghai listing path is underexplored. Z.ai/MiniMax ARR figures are company-stated comps without TI audit.
