Eighteen months ago, DeepSeek was the AI lab that refused everyone’s money. Now it’s reportedly turning investors away. The latest DeepSeek funding round is set to bring in at least 80 billion yuan (about $12 billion), and possibly as much as 100 billion yuan (roughly $15 billion), with Tencent and battery giant CATL among the anchor backers, according to Bloomberg reporting carried on October 6, 2026.
That’s a startling turn for a company that only took its first outside cash in June. So who’s paying, what is DeepSeek actually worth, and where is the IPO heading? Let’s break it down, number by number, with every figure tied to the outlet that reported it. One thing up front: DeepSeek hasn’t publicly confirmed any of it.
DeepSeek Funding at a Glance
| Item | What’s been reported | Source |
|---|---|---|
| New round size | At least 80B yuan (~$12B) | Bloomberg, via Investing.com/Yahoo Finance (Oct 6, 2026) |
| Possible ceiling | Up to 100B yuan (~$15B) | Bloomberg, via Calcalist (Oct 6, 2026) |
| Original target | ~50B yuan (~$7.5B) | Bloomberg, via Calcalist |
| Named backers | Tencent, CATL | Bloomberg |
| Latest valuation figure | ~$75B | Dealroom (Oct 2026), citing CNBC |
| Earlier valuation figure | ~500B yuan (~$74B) | Reuters (July 2026), SCMP (Sept 2026) |
| IPO venue | Shanghai STAR Market (Hong Kong also floated earlier) | Reuters, SCMP, The Next Web |
| Lead IPO adviser | CITIC Securities | SCMP (Sept 9, 2026) |
| Official confirmation | None so far | DeepSeek did not respond to requests for comment |
How Much Money Is DeepSeek Raising Right Now?
Here’s the short version. Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek initially went out asking for about 50 billion yuan. Demand blew past that, pushing the commitments to at least 80 billion yuan, with the final tally possibly reaching 100 billion yuan, according to people familiar with the matter.
Why does that matter to you? Because oversubscription tells you how investors are pricing Chinese AI right now, even with US chip export limits hanging over the sector. Calcalist, reporting on the same news, noted that DeepSeek, Tencent and CATL “did not immediately respond” to requests for comment.
Then there’s the $15 billion figure. Dealroom described the round as swelling to $15 billion at roughly a $75 billion valuation, crediting CNBC. In yuan terms, that lines up with Bloomberg’s 100 billion ceiling.
The key takeaway here is simple: $12 billion is the reported floor, $15 billion is the reported ceiling, and nothing is final until DeepSeek or its investors say so.
The DeepSeek Funding Timeline, Untangled
Sounds like one round, right? Not quite. Reporting over the past five months describes at least two separate raises, and the numbers get mixed up constantly. Let’s back up a little.
| Date (2026) | What was reported | Outlet |
|---|---|---|
| May 6 | China’s chip-focused “Big Fund” in talks to lead a first round of $3B-$4B at up to $50B | Reuters, via Yahoo Finance |
| June 3 | First outside round of ~50B yuan (~$7.4B) at 350B-400B yuan ($52B-$59B) | Reuters, via MarketScreener |
| June 16 | Round closes at $7B+ with an “unusual deal structure,” valuing DeepSeek above $50B | The Information, via Newsquawk |
| July 15 | New round planned at about $71B; IPO filing possible late 2026 or early 2027 | The Next Web, citing FT, Bloomberg and The Information |
| July 19 | Fresh round of up to 50B yuan at ~500B yuan (~$74B); STAR Market IPO weighed | Reuters, via Kuwait Times |
| Sept 9 | CITIC Securities and three other underwriters hired for a STAR Market IPO | South China Morning Post |
| Oct 6 | Round swells to at least 80B yuan (~$12B), possibly 100B yuan | Bloomberg |
| Oct 6-7 | Round put at $15B at a ~$75B valuation | Dealroom, citing CNBC |
You see, the “$7 billion at $50 billion-plus” headlines you may remember belong to the June round. The $12 billion to $15 billion story is the second, pre-IPO round. Same backers, very different scale.
The June round reportedly leaned heavily on the founder himself. Reuters said Liang Wenfeng would personally put in around 20 billion yuan, with Tencent considering about 10 billion yuan and CATL targeting about 5 billion yuan.
“DeepSeek went from refusing outside money to running one of the biggest private rounds in Chinese tech history in about four months.”
Who’s Backing DeepSeek?
Bloomberg names Tencent and CATL as the anchor investors for the current round. That’s an interesting pairing. One is a consumer internet giant with a massive cloud business, and the other makes batteries for electric vehicles.
The broader investor list comes from the June round. Reuters reported that China’s national AI fund, NetEase and JD.com were in final talks, with IDG Capital and Monolith also involved. Reuters’ July report added Loyal Valley Capital and Shixiang Capital.
There’s also a state angle. In May, Reuters reported that the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, better known as the Big Fund, was in talks to lead DeepSeek’s first round. So does Beijing back its AI champions with public money? Through funds like these, the reporting suggests yes, at least partly.
That said, the founder still controls the company. The Next Web reported in July that Liang owns about 78% of DeepSeek.
The key takeaway here is simple: this is strategic money from China’s biggest tech and industrial names, with state-linked funds in the mix.
What Is DeepSeek Worth Now?
The valuation has climbed fast. The Next Web traced the path from about $10 billion in April to roughly $50 billion when the June round closed. By July, Reuters put the next round at around 500 billion yuan, or $74 billion, and SCMP repeated that figure in September.
Dealroom’s latest number is about $75 billion. Investing.com’s write-up of the Bloomberg report cautioned that the earlier $74 billion figure came before the round grew, so the final price could be higher.
Here’s the catch. None of these valuations has been published by DeepSeek. They come from people familiar with the deals and from investor filings, so treat them as well-sourced estimates rather than official marks.
How DeepSeek Compares With Other AI Labs
How big is $12 billion to $15 billion, really? Big for China. Modest next to the US giants.
| Company | Latest round | Valuation | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | $122B | $852B post-money | Apr 1, 2026 | Sharecast/Hargreaves Lansdown |
| Anthropic | $65B Series H | $965B post-money | May 29, 2026 | Orrick (Anthropic’s counsel) |
| Mistral AI | EUR 3B Series D | EUR 21B post-money | Sept 8, 2026 | Orrick (Mistral’s counsel) |
| DeepSeek | ~$12B-$15B (reported, not final) | ~$74B-$75B (reported) | Oct 6, 2026 | Bloomberg, Dealroom/CNBC |
So who’s the biggest funder of AI? By single-round size this year, SoftBank’s co-led $122 billion OpenAI deal tops this list. DeepSeek’s round is a fraction of that, yet its valuation is more than three times Mistral’s.
That gap matters. US labs are pricing in trillion-dollar ambitions, while DeepSeek has built its name on doing more with less. If you’ve been following releases like Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Google’s Gemini 4 Argon, you know the frontier labs compete on spending as much as on smarts.
Where the Money Is Going
Compute, mostly. Reuters’ July report said DeepSeek planned to expand staff working on data centres and AI agents, spend heavily on capital expenditure and develop its own AI inference chip. In May, Reuters reported the earlier proceeds were meant for computing infrastructure and higher staff pay.
The October coverage adds detail. American Bazaar, summarising the latest reports, said DeepSeek plans to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei AI accelerators at a data centre under construction in Inner Mongolia. Calcalist reported DeepSeek is also working with Huawei on programming tools for Huawei’s Ascend chips, aimed at reducing China’s reliance on Nvidia.
Revenue is growing too, but it’s small next to the raise. The Next Web reported annualised revenue of $400 million to $500 million from cloud access to DeepSeek’s models.
The key takeaway here is simple: this money buys chips, data centres and people, not marketing.
What This Means for You as a DeepSeek User
Let’s be practical. If you use the DeepSeek app or API, or apps built on it, here’s what the funding could change.
- Pricing: DeepSeek is still very cheap. According to DeepSeek’s official API pricing page, the Flash model costs $0.15 per million input tokens (cache miss) and $0.60 per million output tokens off-peak, with peak rates double that. More compute could help keep prices low, but investors will eventually want margins.
- Open models: DeepSeek’s homepage still highlights its open-source releases, including V4 and R1. Watch whether that continues once public shareholders are in the picture.
- Privacy: This concern is documented. NPR reported in 2025 that DeepSeek’s terms send collected data to servers in China, and that Italy blocked the app from app stores while regulators in France and Ireland looked into it. Fresh funding doesn’t change where your data goes.
- Reliability: More GPUs and accelerators usually mean fewer “server busy” errors during peak demand.
If you’re a developer weighing providers, compare this with what OpenAI showed at DevDay 2026. Price is only one part of the decision. Data residency matters just as much.
What to Watch Next
1. Wait for an official confirmation
So far, every number comes from anonymous sources. A statement from DeepSeek, Tencent or CATL, or a regulatory filing, would lock in the final size and valuation.
2. Track which exchange wins the IPO
Reuters and SCMP point to Shanghai’s STAR Market, with CITIC Securities leading. Back in July, The Next Web said the market expected mainland China or Hong Kong, where rivals Zhipu and MiniMax have already listed. Treat Shanghai as the frontrunner, not a done deal.
3. Watch the IPO filing date
Reuters said in July that DeepSeek aimed internally to complete an IPO filing this year. Other outlets point to a 2027 listing. Both can be true: a 2026 filing, then a 2027 debut.
4. Follow the next model release
DeepSeek launched V4.1-Flash in September, according to Calcalist. A big model drop after the round closes would show how quickly the new compute turns into product.
5. Keep an eye on chip export rules
DeepSeek’s push into Huawei hardware is partly a hedge against US restrictions. Any change in export policy could reshape its costs overnight.
The Bigger Picture
DeepSeek’s story is one of the strangest in tech. A lab that shunned investors is now raising money faster than most startups can write a pitch deck. Plenty of well-funded companies still stumble, as our breakdown of why tech startups fail shows, so a giant round is a starting gun, not a finish line.
“Cheap models built the hype. Expensive compute will decide whether it lasts.”
For you, the next few months should bring real answers: an official round size, an IPO venue and, hopefully, even better models at prices that keep the rest of the industry honest. Keep watching.
Frequently Asked Questions
Bloomberg reports Tencent and CATL are backing the current round. Earlier reporting from Reuters named founder Liang Wenfeng, China’s national AI fund, NetEase, JD.com, IDG Capital and Monolith among June round investors.
Reports put it at roughly $74 billion to $75 billion. Reuters and SCMP cited about 500 billion yuan, while Dealroom, citing CNBC, put it at about $75 billion. DeepSeek hasn’t confirmed either figure.
No. As of October 7, 2026, the figures come from people familiar with the matter, and DeepSeek did not respond to requests for comment.
It appears to be preparing. SCMP reported that DeepSeek hired CITIC Securities and three other underwriters for a Shanghai STAR Market listing, though timing and valuation haven’t been set.
Indirectly, according to reports. Reuters said China’s national AI fund joined talks for the June round, and the state-backed Big Fund was reported in May as a potential lead investor.
There’s no announced price change. The API remains among the cheapest available, though more investors could bring more pressure to monetise over time.
