Chinese AI startup Deepseek is nearing the completion of a new funding round, with total investment expected to reach between $12 billion and $15 billion. The company initially targeted $7.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $75 billion. Major contributors to the current round include battery manufacturer CATL and tech giant Tencent.
Investor interest is driven by the performance of the V4-Flash model, which competes with solutions from OpenAI and Anthropic. The company previously closed an external funding round in June, securing $7.4 billion at a valuation exceeding $50 billion. Founder Liang Wenfeng intends to continue the development of open-source models with publicly available weights.
Deepseek is currently constructing a data center equipped with at least 160 000 AI chips sourced from Huawei. The firm is also developing its own inference hardware to decrease reliance on external suppliers like Nvidia and Huawei. Following the conclusion of the current funding round, the company plans to undergo restructuring in preparation for an IPO scheduled for early 2027.
