DeepSeek: From Unknown Startup to AI Giant

China's DeepSeek AI startup is preparing for a major funding round. The company plans to raise nearly 50 billion yuan (approximately $7.4 billion) in this stage. Potential investors reportedly include tech giant Tencent Holdings and battery manufacturer CATL. Ixbt.com reports .

According to sources, the company's total valuation could reach between 350 and 400 billion yuan ($52–59 billion) following this deal. Startup founder Liang Wenfeng has already invested 20 billion yuan of personal funds into the project. Tencent is considering investing around 10 billion yuan, and CATL about 5 billion yuan, making them the largest external investors in the round.

Companies such as NetEase and JD.com are also participating in negotiations, but the total number of investors is expected not to exceed ten. DeepSeek has quickly become one of the key players in China's AI market. Its V3 and R1 models have gained significant recognition in Silicon Valley, further intensifying competition in the industry.

DeepSeek is a family of powerful open-source large language models (LLMs) that have emerged as competitors to ChatGPT and other popular models. The company stands out for the low cost of training its models. The system is capable of text generation, code writing, solving logical problems, and image generation.