DeepSeek nears 12 billion dollars in new funding

The Chinese AI company DeepSeek is close to raising at least 80 billion yuan, equivalent to around 12 billion dollars, in a new funding round. That's according to Bloomberg. Converted, the amount is approximately DKK 80 billion.

According to the reports, Tencent, which among other things is behind the app WeChat, and the battery maker CATL have pledged some of the largest amounts.

Bigger than planned

DeepSeek originally only wanted to raise around 50 billion yuan. But interest from investors has been far greater than expected. According to Bloomberg, the final amount could end up as high as 100 billion yuan.

Earlier this year, DeepSeek closed a first round of just over 7 billion dollars, in which Tencent and CATL also took part. The company was valued at just under 60 billion dollars at the time. So this is the second big round in a short time.

IPO in 2027

The money comes ahead of a planned IPO in early 2027. An IPO means that the company's shares can be traded freely, so ordinary investors can buy them.

DeepSeek has gained momentum after the release of the model V4 Flash. According to Bloomberg, it has changed expectations of how much an AI model should cost relative to how good it is, compared with leading players such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

Huawei chips in Inner Mongolia

DeepSeek will also use at least 160,000 of Huawei's most powerful AI chips in a large data center in Inner Mongolia. It could become one of the largest known collections of Huawei chips for AI. That is interesting because China is trying to manage without American chips.

What does it mean for you?

DeepSeek is known for making AI that is cheap to use. More capital lets the company afford more chips and faster development. That can increase the pressure on OpenAI and Anthropic and in the longer term lead to cheaper AI services. However, these are reports from Bloomberg and not an official confirmation from DeepSeek, and the round has not yet been finally closed.