DeepSeek has closed its first external funding round, raising more than 50 billion yuan, which is approximately $7.4 billion, at a valuation exceeding $50 billion, according to The Information.
Outside investors received no voting rights and face a five-year lock-up, with China’s state-backed AI fund the only party granted direct equity and voting privileges.
The raise puts DeepSeek in direct competition with Anthropic, valued at $965 billion, and OpenAI, valued at $852 billion, but at a fraction of their capitalisation.
Just 18 months ago, few outside China had heard of DeepSeek. Today, it is closing one of the largest private AI financings in history, and doing it entirely on its own terms.
The Chinese AI startup has raised more than 50 billion yuan, approximately $7.4 billion, in its first-ever external funding round, at a valuation exceeding $50 billion, according to a report from The Information. The deal cements DeepSeek’s position as China’s leading artificial intelligence company and puts it on a collision course with the Western giants it has spent two years quietly unsettling.
