DeepSeek is close to completing a new round of about RMB 100 billion, with a pre-money valuation of roughly RMB 500 billion, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Leiphone’s Leidi.
The confirmation is not a press release. It comes from filings by two listed Chinese media and gaming groups. Perfect World (002624.SZ) said it would commit RMB 50 million as a limited partner to a fund called Lisi Xingshen, managed by Hainan Lisi and closed at RMB 7.52 billion, for a 0.6649 per cent stake. On the same day it committed RMB 100 million to the Xiang Shangshi fund, a RMB 3.65 billion vehicle, for 2.7397 per cent. Century Huatong’s wholly owned subsidiary signed into the same fund with RMB 650 million.
Both vehicles are investors in DeepSeek’s new round, the people said.
Tencent put in about RMB 10 billion and remains a shareholder. The new money is mostly industrial: Shixi Capital, SMIC Juyuan, CPE Yuanfeng, Legend Capital and Geely. Existing holders including CATL, Tencent, IDG, Monolith and Xiangshang followed on.
RMB 51 billion last time
The previous round raised RMB 51 billion and was led by founder Liang Wenfeng, with Tencent, CATL, NetEase, JD.com and IDG joining and the national AI industry investment fund taking a strategic position. Monolith subscribed RMB 2.9 billion for 0.8265 per cent. Once this round closes, its total commitment to DeepSeek passes RMB 10 billion. Monolith was founded by Cao Xi, formerly a partner at Sequoia China, and Tim Wang, formerly of Boyu Capital.
A finance chief arrives
DeepSeek has also hired a chief financial officer. Yan Wentao, born in 1991, joins from Hillhouse, where he worked on ByteDance, Xiaohongshu, MiniMax, Zhipu and J&T Express. A CFO at a foundation-model lab with no published revenue guidance is a filing signal before it is an accounting one.
Chinese frontier labs are raising into export controls that limit access to Nvidia’s top accelerators. Capital at this scale is the domestic substitute for that silicon. It buys clusters, talent and time, and it concentrates the country’s bet: three or four labs now hold most of the private capital available for foundation models, which turns the next twelve months into a selection event rather than a boom.
A RMB 500 billion pre-money valuation is about USD 70 billion for a company that publishes no revenue target and prices its API below cost.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Sohu Tech report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://www.sohu.com/a/1090779797_430392.