DeepSeek reportedly set to raise more than ¥80B (~$12B) at a ~$74B valuation, with Tencent and CATL leading
DeepSeek is reportedly closing a second external round of more than 80 billion yuan (about $11.9B), well above its original 50 billion yuan target, at a valuation of roughly 500 billion yuan (~$74B), according to Reuters and Bloomberg. Tencent and battery maker CATL are said to be among the largest commitments, with term sheets signed and the round expected to complete in October; Bloomberg says demand could push the total to 100 billion yuan. The Hangzhou lab has also hired CITIC Securities for a possible STAR Market IPO and plans to run 160,000 Huawei accelerators at an Inner Mongolia data center. It would be one of the largest private AI rounds ever and a sign that China's open-model labs now have the capital to match US frontier spending.
