DeepSeek nears $7.4 billion raise at valuation of up to $59 billion

Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek is set to raise about 50 billion yuan, or $7.4 billion, in its first funding round.

The deal could value the company at between 350 billion yuan and 400 billion yuan, equivalent to about $52 billion to $59 billion, the people said.

The fundraising, if completed, would mark a major debut for one of China’s most closely watched AI companies and further cement its role in Beijing’s push to build a more self-reliant technology ecosystem.

The round is expected to be completed within the next couple of weeks, though the financial terms could still change.

Fewer than 10 investors are expected to take part.

Tencent and CATL poised as key backers

Founder Liang Wenfeng has committed 20 billion yuan of his own money to the round, Reuters reported.

Tencent is considering an investment of 10 billion yuan, while CATL is looking at putting in 5 billion yuan, the people said.

That would make the two companies the largest external backers in DeepSeek’s first fundraising.

DeepSeek is also in final talks with China’s national artificial intelligence fund, gaming developer NetEase and e-commerce group JD.com.

Hong Kong-headquartered IDG Capital and Monolith Capital are among other prospective investors, the people familiar with the deal said.

The scale of the proposed funding highlights the strategic importance attached to DeepSeek, whose models have drawn attention inside and outside China.

It also shows how China’s biggest technology and industrial groups are trying to position themselves across the AI value chain, from model development to cloud infrastructure and energy supply.

Why Tencent and CATL matter

Tencent has promoted its own Hunyuan model, but it trails domestic leaders including ByteDance’s Doubao and DeepSeek.

A closer relationship with DeepSeek could help Tencent strengthen its AI position and keep pace with Alibaba, which has prioritised development of its in-house Qwen model.

For Tencent, backing DeepSeek would offer exposure to one of China’s leading model developers at a time when AI is becoming central to search, cloud computing, gaming, advertising and enterprise software.

CATL’s potential role points to another part of the AI boom: energy. The company is best known as the world’s largest maker of electric vehicle batteries, but it has been moving into AI data centres by exploring power equipment and energy storage solutions.

That push comes as AI workloads increase demand for large-scale, reliable power. Data centres running advanced AI models require huge amounts of electricity, cooling and backup capacity, making energy infrastructure a critical part of the sector’s expansion.

China’s wider AI push

DeepSeek became China’s national AI champion early last year after its V3 and R1 models won praise in Silicon Valley and challenged US assumptions about China’s AI capabilities.

The lineup of potential investors underscores Beijing’s wider effort to reduce reliance on foreign technology and build a domestic AI ecosystem that can compete globally.

That ambition extends beyond software. China is seeking to develop stronger domestic capabilities in chips, cloud infrastructure, data centres, model training and the energy systems needed to support AI at scale.

DeepSeek’s fundraising would bring together some of the country’s most important players across those areas.

Tencent brings consumer internet reach and cloud resources, CATL brings energy and storage expertise, while JD.com and NetEase offer large digital platforms and commercial use cases.