DeepSeek is in talks to raise its first venture capital funding round, with its potential valuation rising from $20 billion to $45 billion within weeks, the Financial Times and Bloomberg reported.
The Chinese AI lab gained attention in early 2025 after launching a large language model that reportedly required far less computing power and lower costs than models developed by companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
The company has continued to compete with leading global AI models in areas including reasoning and coding while keeping its models open-source, with versions available on Hugging Face.
DeepSeek was founded by Chinese hedge fund billionaire Liang Wenfeng, who reportedly controls nearly 90% of the company. According to the Financial Times, the company had not previously sought outside investment.
However, the outlet reported that Liang decided to raise capital after competitors began recruiting DeepSeek researchers. Sources told the newspaper the funding would help the company offer employees equity stakes.
Bloomberg reported that the investment round is expected to be led by China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, a state-backed investment vehicle. China has been increasing support for domestic AI development as it faces challenges in obtaining US technology, particularly advanced chips.
DeepSeek has optimized its AI models to run on hardware developed by Huawei Technologies. Bloomberg reported that Chinese technology companies Tencent and Alibaba are also in talks to participate in the funding round.