DeepSeek closes in on a $12B raise: Tencent and CATL pile in as demand overshoots the target
Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that DeepSeek is close to securing at least 80 billion yuan (about $11.93 billion) in its latest funding round, with Tencent and CATL committing among the largest amounts. The company originally sought roughly 50 billion yuan — but investor demand blew past the target, and the final tally could approach 100 billion yuan.
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek is close to securing at least 80 billion yuan — about $11.93 billion — in its latest funding round, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Battery giant CATL and Tencent Holdings have committed among the largest amounts in the round, the report said. The company originally sought roughly 50 billion yuan; investor demand exceeded expectations after the successful launch of its latest AI model, and the final tally could approach 100 billion yuan (about $14.9 billion).
Two caveats, right up front: DeepSeek, Tencent and CATL did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Reuters — which carried the Bloomberg story on Tuesday — said it could not independently verify the report. "Close to securing" is not closed, and none of the reported numbers have been confirmed by the parties.
Demand blew past the ask
The overshoot is the news. DeepSeek's original 50-billion-yuan target was already one of the largest private raises in Chinese tech history; a final figure near 100 billion yuan would put it among the largest private AI financings ever closed, anywhere.
Bloomberg attributed the excess demand to the successful launch of DeepSeek's latest model. Last month the company released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, which it said was designed for greater capability, faster inference and higher throughput — and for scaling to larger models. And the round's two biggest reported backers are familiar faces: Tencent and CATL were already the largest outside investors in DeepSeek's first external round, committing about 10 billion yuan and 5 billion yuan respectively, according to South China Morning Post reporting.
From refusenik to capital magnet
The fundraise completes one of the sharpest corporate reversals in Chinese technology. For its first years DeepSeek refused outside capital entirely, bankrolled by founder Liang Wenfeng's quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer. It closed its first external round only this year — about 50 billion yuan at a post-money valuation near 400 billion yuan ($59 billion), per the South China Morning Post, with Liang personally contributing roughly 20 billion yuan of his own fortune to keep control. Outside investors reportedly accepted a five-year lock-up and no board seats.
Since then the momentum has been relentless: DeepSeek's annualized revenue run rate hit $1 billion in September, more than doubling in a matter of months, and the company hired CITIC Securities to prepare a potential STAR Market IPO in Shanghai. It has also pushed its domestic-silicon strategy — partnering with Huawei on programming tools for the Ascend AI chips its models run on, and open-sourcing the Ascend programming stack.
Why it matters
If the round closes anywhere near 100 billion yuan, it would rival the largest AI financings of the year — and do so on an almost entirely domestic stack: Chinese capital, Chinese chips, a planned Shanghai listing. Watch two things: whether the final figure lands closer to 80 billion or 100 billion yuan, and what valuation it implies. The first round's 400-billion-yuan mark already put DeepSeek in the same neighborhood as the most valuable private AI companies on earth; the new round's pricing will show how fast that neighborhood is repricing.
