DeepSeek raises $15B
AI lab DeepSeek has reportedly raised about $15 billion, one of the biggest funding rounds in China, just two days after the U.S. ordered federal civilian agencies to remove its technology from their systems over security concerns, Bloomberg reported.
Potential investors include Chinese battery maker CATL and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, among others, according to the report.
The Hangzhou-based startup was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, who previously co-founded Chinese quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, which helped finance DeepSeek’s early development. DeepSeek gained global attention in early 2025 with its free-to-use, open-weight RI reasoning model.
The company had previously raised more than $7 billion in June and was reportedly seeking an additional $1.5 billion in July at a valuation of around $71 billion. The latest round follows DeepSeek’s ramp-up in spending on AI infrastructure and open models for domestic and international markets.
