The round outgrew its own target
DeepSeek is close to securing at least 80 billion yuan — about $12 billion — in a funding round in which Tencent and the battery manufacturer CATL are among the largest backers, Bloomberg reported on 6 October. The lab originally set out to raise around 50 billion yuan. On the strength of term sheets already signed, the final figure could approach 100 billion yuan, or roughly $14.9 billion.
The valuation DeepSeek is seeking is about 500 billion yuan, or $75 billion. That is a steep mark-up on its last round earlier this year, which Bloomberg put at roughly $7.4 billion raised at a valuation above $50 billion.
Alongside Tencent and CATL, the reporting names Geely Auto and the investment managers Monolith Management and Loyal Valley Capital as committed. State-backed funds are among those competing for allocations. Tencent and DeepSeek did not respond to requests for comment.
What the money is for, and what comes after it
The proceeds are pointed at computing infrastructure, model development and hiring — the three costs that have followed every Chinese lab trying to hold a position at the open-weight frontier while working around export controls on the chips that would make it easier.
Bloomberg frames the raise as pre-IPO capital. DeepSeek is planning a listing in early 2027, and a corporate restructuring is expected once the round closes. A company that has spent its public life as a research lab publishing weights would, on that path, become a listed business with reporting obligations and shareholders who want a revenue line.
The investor appetite, by Bloomberg’s account, outran the original target after the release of DeepSeek’s latest model, V4-Flash, which the outlet says set new marks on cost and performance against rivals. Those are the terms on which DeepSeek has competed since R1: not the top of a leaderboard, but the price of getting close to it.
Why a battery maker is on the list
CATL’s presence is the detail worth pausing on. The world’s largest maker of electric-vehicle batteries is not an obvious strategic investor in a language-model lab, and Geely Auto’s involvement points the same way: Chinese industrial groups are buying into frontier AI directly rather than licensing it.
That pattern matters more than the headline number. A model lab backed by manufacturers, carmakers and state funds has a different set of incentives from one backed by venture capital, and a different set of customers waiting on the other side of the IPO.
None of this is confirmed by DeepSeek. The figures come from people familiar with the discussions, speaking to Bloomberg, and the round has not closed. The concrete things to watch are the final size when it does, and whether the early-2027 listing survives contact with a market that has spent this year repricing AI companies in both directions.
