DeepSeek is close to finishing a funding round of roughly 50 billion yuan, about $7.4 billion, at a pre-money valuation near 500 billion yuan, or about $74 billion. The South China Morning Post reported the round was expected to close before the end of August, with proceeds directed at model research and computing infrastructure.
The round is structured as a pre-IPO raise. DeepSeek is preparing to list on Shanghai's STAR Market and could file as soon as the end of 2026, with a debut targeted for 2027. The company has reached roughly $500 million in annual recurring revenue, the figure that would anchor a listing prospectus.
Who is investing
The investor list is largely a repeat of the last round. Local venture funds Monolith and Shixiang are returning, as is Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, the battery manufacturer better known as CATL. Funds backed by Chinese local-government financing platforms are also participating.
The round also changes how investors hold their stakes. In previous rounds, most outside investors could not hold DeepSeek equity directly; they took positions through a limited partnership managed by founder Liang Wenfeng. This round opens direct ownership.
How fast the valuation moved
DeepSeek's first-ever outside funding round closed only months earlier. SCMP reported in June that Liang was committing around 20 billion yuan (~$2.8 billion) of his own capital to that raise, with Tencent putting in 10 billion yuan (~$1.4 billion) and CATL 5 billion yuan (~$700 million) to become the largest external shareholders. IDG Capital, Loyal Valley Capital, Monolith and Shixiang also participated, with NetEase and JD.com contributing about 3 billion yuan (~$420 million) each.
Reported valuations for the company have not been consistent. Coverage of the June round put DeepSeek's post-money value at about 450 billion yuan (~$63 billion), while a Chinese regulatory filing surfaced this summer implied a figure closer to $52 billion. The $74 billion number attached to this round is a pre-money valuation from people familiar with the talks, not a disclosed or audited figure, and the round had not been formally announced as of September 1.
DeepSeek has continued shipping open-weight models through the round. In April the company released V4 Pro, a 1.6-trillion-parameter open-source model with a one-million-token context window, continuing the open-weights strategy that made its name.
Andreessen Horowitz closed a $1.1 billion Machine Age Fund for chips, networking and data centers in August, and Instinct raised a $250 million Series B at a $2.5 billion valuation. SCMP reported DeepSeek's proceeds are directed at model research and computing infrastructure.
Source: South China Morning Post
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