DeepSeek reportedly raising $15 billion in new round

Chinese AI company DeepSeek is raising about $15 billion in a new funding round, TechCrunch reports, citing information from Bloomberg. The round has not been formally closed, and the figure is based on unnamed sources.

According to Bloomberg via TechCrunch, the potential investors include battery maker CATL and Tencent, the company behind WeChat.

Second round in a few months

The last round took place in June 2026 and totaled about $7 billion. At that time, DeepSeek was valued at about $50 billion. It was the company's first outside funding, meaning the first time money came in from investors outside the company itself.

The timing is notable

News of the new round came two days after the US on October 20, 2026, ordered civilian federal agencies to remove DeepSeek's AI technology from their systems. The stated reason was security concerns. Civilian federal agencies means US government bodies outside the defense sector.

For ordinary users in Denmark, the decision changes nothing directly, since it applies to US government agencies' own systems. But it shows that AI tools from China are meeting growing distrust in the US.

The founder owns most of the company

According to TechCrunch, citing ownership data analyzed by WireScreen, Liang Wenfeng has an estimated ownership stake of 81.6 percent in DeepSeek's Chinese operating company. That means he holds a very large share of control over the company.

TechCrunch gives no figures for DeepSeek's revenue or for how the company makes money. Other outlets have previously cited different figures for the round and for the valuation. Those figures are unverified and contradict each other, so $15 billion should be read as a reported and not yet confirmed amount.