DeepSeek, the Chinese AI lab that unsettled the industry with a cheap, capable model last year, has closed its first round of outside funding, raising roughly 50 billion yuan, about $7bn, in a deal whose structure is as notable as its size. The valuation lands between $52bn and $59bn, according to Reuters.
The unusual part is who is putting in the most. Founder Liang Wenfeng is committing 20 billion yuan of his own money, a controlling share of the raise, which keeps him firmly in charge of a company that until this year had taken no external venture capital at all.
DeepSeek had been funded entirely from the balance sheet of High-Flyer, the quantitative hedge fund Liang also founded, and the new round is less an opening of the doors than a carefully managed crack.
The largest outside backers are names that carry weight in China’s tech and industrial economy. Tencent is weighing roughly 10 billion yuan and the battery giant CATL around 5 billion yuan, which would place two of the country’s most significant companies on the cap table while leaving the founder’s stake dominant.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!The presence of CATL, a battery maker rather than a software firm, hints at the breadth of Chinese corporate interest in backing a national AI champion.
