NextFin News -- China's artificial intelligence startupDeepSeek on Tuesday completed fundraising of more than RMB 50 billion. Along with this round, DeepSeek ’ s valuation has surpassed USD 50 billion, according to The Information.
It should be noted that, as of now, the above report from overseas media has not been officially confirmed by DeepSeek or the relevant investors. However, based on the developments so far, DeepSeek ’ s round appears to be close to being finalized.
This round began in April 2026 and has so far lasted two months — also marking the first time since DeepSeek ’ s founding that it has opened up to external financing. For a long period prior to this, since its establishment, DeepSeek had adhered to principles such as "no fundraising, no IPO, and no commercialization."
Precisely because of this backdrop, DeepSeek ’ s round has attracted considerable attention both within China ’ s AI sector and across the global AI market. And with a large number of investors eager to get in, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng set an extremely high bar for participation, adding another layer of intrigue to the deal.
Below are the seven key questions in this round that deserve the most attention.
1. What ’ s the overall picture of DeepSeek ’ s current funding round?
According to overseas media reports, DeepSeek raised more than RMB 50 billion in this round. Liang Wenfeng himself invested RMB 20 billion, while other investors included Tencent, CATL, JD.com, NetEase, IDG Capital, and others.
With this funding round completed, DeepSeek ’ s valuation has now topped US$50 billion.
Notably, DeepSeek officially launched this round of fundraising as early as April 2026, when it was valued at around US$10 billion. But over the following two months, DeepSeek ’ s valuation multiplied several times over, and the round subsequently became the largest financing round in China ’ s large-model sector.
2. What ’ s special about this funding round?
In terms of deal execution, DeepSeek adopted a special structure for this round.
According to reports from foreign media, in this fundraising, most investors were required to inject capital into a limited partnership controlled by DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng, rather than investing directly into DeepSeek the company itself — and these investors were also subject to a five-year lock-up period.
Under this structure, these investors do not have voting rights in DeepSeek, but they can receive preferential financial information and have priority rights to participate in potential subsequent funding rounds.
Meanwhile, foreign media reports said that among all investors, the only exception was the National AI Industry Investment Fund. The fund could invest directly in DeepSeek, with an investment amount of RMB 1 billion; it has voting rights in the company and is not subject to the lock-up period.
3. Why arrange the financing this way?
Based on the current situation, the core reason for adopting this special arrangement is to safeguard Liang Wenfeng ’ s absolute control over DeepSeek.
After all, various pieces of information from the past suggest that Liang Wenfeng is firmly associated with a brand of technological idealism: he founded DeepSeek with the original intention of achieving artificial general intelligence and ensuring it can benefit ordinary people.
According to media reports, at a previous meeting with investors, Liang Wenfeng made it clear that the company would continue pushing forward open-source AI models, with artificial general intelligence ( AGI ) as its goal. DeepSeek ’ s top priority at present, he said, is to keep expanding the technological frontier — in other words, to prioritize breakthrough AI research over profitability and short-term commercialization.
Beyond this original vision, Liang Wenfeng set strict terms for this financing round. He established a five-year equity lock-up period to ensure that everyone coming on board is patient, long-term capital with strategic staying power — rather than investors looking for a quick cash-out.
4. Why was Tencent able to get in on this financing round?
For Tencent, investing in DeepSeek is an action that goes far beyond a purely financial investment; it is clearly a strategic move.
From Tencent ’ s perspective, it was among the earliest adopters of DeepSeek. When DeepSeek shot to fame in February 2025, Tencent was also one of the first to add support for DeepSeek in its Yuanbao App, and the two sides have very strong business synergies.
With this financing round, there is a strong chance that this synergy will continue as both parties further develop their AI businesses.
From another angle, Tencent ’ s ability to join the round is also related to its long-standing investment style. In its long-term investment practice, Tencent often takes an approach of providing multifaceted support to portfolio companies without proactively intervening, and it is generally very patient overall. This may also have been a key factor enabling Tencent to participate.
5. What is the core logic behind CATL ’ s investment in DeepSeek?
For DeepSeek, as it advances AI toward AGI, large-scale training compute is undoubtedly a crucial technical pillar. And at the physical-world level, compute is primarily supported by data centers — especially power-hungry AI data centers.
Data centers are precisely the major strategic and business convergence point between DeepSeek and CATL.
In particular, the energy-storage segment related to AI data centers is exactly the area CATL is currently doubling down on, and it is where CATL ’ s next growth curve lies.
It is worth noting that in a previous public interview discussing AI, CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun said:
In the AI space, we view AI as a tool overall, rather than trying to compete with AI companies within the AI industry. But AI runs on energy; in the end, your AIDC ( AI data center ) and your tokens are essentially forms of energy.
On this basis, Zeng Yuqun emphasized that CATL hopes to contribute to energy solutions for AIDCs — which is also a core point of alignment behind CATL ’ s move to join this round of DeepSeek ’ s financing.
6. In terms of this financing round, what does it mean for the "national team" to come in?
In DeepSeek ’ s latest financing round, the entry of the "national team" is a particularly noteworthy point to watch.
Earlier, in May, the Financial Times reported that the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund was in talks with DeepSeek to lead its first financing round. However, in The Information ’ s latest report on June 16, the investing entity from the "national team" was instead the National AI Industry Investment Fund.
As a result, exactly how the "national team" has entered the deal remains murky.
What can be confirmed, however, is that in the current environment, for a company like DeepSeek, its competitiveness in AI has already gone beyond technology itself — and from the perspective of compute compatibility, eight domestic AI chipmakers, including Huawei Ascend, Cambricon, Muxi, and Moore Threads, have all completed full adaptation for DeepSeek-V4.
It is also worth noting that, according to a person familiar with the matter, this round included a special clause: Liang Wenfeng ’ s team required verification of the true identities of the limited partners behind all participating funds, to avoid the risk of equity ultimately ending up in the hands of unknown parties — thelogic behind this is self-evident.
7. After this round of financing is completed, how will DeepSeek develop next?
On the one hand, from a product perspective, DeepSeek may have the opportunity to roll out new model versions down the line, offer enterprise users more tools, and support the industry-standard MCP protocol, including adding support for images and audio. To some extent, this is also aimed at moving more effectively toward commercialization.
On the other hand, DeepSeek will naturally need to step up investment in infrastructure, talent acquisition, and model training. Based on the latest publicly available updates so far, DeepSeek has already launched a hiring initiative for roles related to its Inner Mongolia data center ( and the pay is not low ) , which is enough to show that its goal of building its own data center has begun to move into execution.
In the long run, DeepSeek ’ s goal is to achieve AGI. That is a long journey and will still require substantial 投入— capital, talent, and more. For Liang Wenfeng, the unavoidable challenge will be how to maintain the company ’ s technical approach and its original commitment to broad accessibility while also managing investors ’ expectations around DeepSeek ’ s commercialization and a reasonable return.
In a sense, DeepSeek ’ s first round of financing was merely the beginning of this journey. ( Reporting by Wang Zhi and Editing by Zhou Yi )
