DeepSeek gears up for a Shanghai IPO: CITIC begins due diligence, first CFO hired

For a company that took no outside money until June, never had a CFO, and has never disclosed a financial number, DeepSeek is suddenly moving like a company preparing for the public markets. Within two weeks, China's top investment bank started IPO due diligence inside the Hangzhou lab, a veteran venture investor was installed as finance chief, and two separate reports put the near-term fundraising target at $7.45 billion — one raise before the IPO, and one as part of it.

The IPO machinery is moving#

The clearest signal came this week, when the Yangtze Evening News reported that CITIC Securities has begun IPO due diligence at DeepSeek — weeks after Reuters reported the lab had hired CITIC as its IPO adviser and plans to start the listing process this year. There is no formal pre-listing tutoring agreement yet: DeepSeek does not appear in the Zhejiang securities regulator's tutoring-filing records, the step that starts the clock on China's mandatory at-least-three-month regulatory guidance process. Sources told the paper the bank is most likely still in the early due-diligence phase, and that the timing, size, and valuation of any offering remain undecided.

The governance piece fell into place two weeks earlier. On September 14, Reuters reported DeepSeek had hired Yan Wentao, an investment partner at GL Ventures, as its first chief financial officer — a hire that almost always precedes a listing. The company declined to confirm the appointment. DeepSeek, founded by hedge-fund manager Liang Wenfeng and funded until June entirely by his High-Flyer Capital, has run for years without a finance department at all.

The money#

The Information reported on September 24 that DeepSeek is pursuing roughly $7.45 billion in an IPO targeted for completion by the end of next month, at a valuation of about $75 billion, with CITIC Securities as lead underwriter. That figure is strikingly close to the second external round reported days later: Reuters said DeepSeek is raising about $7.45 billion at a 500 billion yuan (roughly $75 billion) valuation, targeting a close by the end of October, with Tencent, CATL, JD.com, NetEase, and a state-backed national AI fund already in or circling. The first round, in June, raised roughly $7.4 billion at a valuation above $50 billion — DeepSeek's first external money, ever.

One caution: reported figures vary widely. The Information puts DeepSeek's annualized revenue run rate above $1 billion after API price hikes, while TechNode reports 475 million yuan in revenue for January–July 2026 — numbers that do not obviously reconcile. Every figure in this story comes from anonymous sources; DeepSeek discloses nothing as a private company.

Why go public at all#

The most revealing detail, per The Information, is that the IPO is less about raising capital than about paying people. The offering would serve more as a compensation vehicle — giving senior engineers liquid equity — than as a fundraiser. That framing fits the lab's most fragile asset: its talent. Two pillars of DeepSeek's model teams have walked out this year — Luo Fuli, a V3 contributor, left for Xiaomi's MiMo team, and Guo Daya, the R1 reasoning lead, left for ByteDance's Seed team — amid an intensifying war for Chinese AI talent.

Control, meanwhile, is not in question. Founder Liang Wenfeng holds roughly 84% of the economics and near-total voting power through a partnership structure managed by himself and his core team, according to the filing summaries reported by Reuters — a governance arrangement Chinese regulators have tolerated for tech giants, but one that a STAR Market disclosure regime will test.

The STAR Market path#

Chinese media briefings this week put the destination at Shanghai's STAR Market — the tech board where China's AI champions are supposed to list — with trading likely not until 2027, given the mandatory guidance process. The cautionary tale is MiniMax: after announcing its own STAR Market listing plans, its Hong Kong-listed shares sank to roughly a quarter of their post-debut peak, having initially doubled. Zhipu AI's Hong Kong debut surged 524% in January. The next chapter of the China AI listing story will be written in Shanghai — and DeepSeek is now the protagonist.

What to watch#

• The tutoring filing. A formal pre-listing tutoring agreement registered with the Zhejiang regulator is the first hard paper trail — its absence is exactly why the due-diligence news matters more than any valuation rumor.
• The second round's close. $7.45 billion at a 500 billion yuan valuation, targeting end of October: any delay or repricing will calibrate expectations for the IPO itself.
• The “process starts this year” timeline. Reuters says DeepSeek plans to begin the IPO process in 2026; that commitment is now measured in weeks, not months.

For three years DeepSeek has been the AI industry's black box — the lab that produced R1 and V3 with almost no public footprint. An IPO would end that era. The due diligence is just the first knock.