DeepSeek is reportedly in preliminary talks with new investors about a second funding round, one month after closing its first. The Hangzhou-based company raised about $7 billion at a $52 billion post-money valuation around the end of May. The new discussions center on a pre-money valuation near $71 billion, a 37% step-up, though terms aren't finalized.
DeepSeek reportedly expects capital spending to climb as it builds its own data center and buys more AI chips, with its push into autonomous agents requiring far more computing power than earlier models. Proceeds from the first round are funding infrastructure and researcher hiring. The company said last month it would "expand every department" and plans to double many of its core teams.
Founder Liang Wenfeng put roughly $3 billion into the May round, making him its largest investor. Tencent Holdings (00700), JD.com NASDAQ:JD, NetEase NASDAQ:NTES, and battery maker CATL (300750) also participated, and China's state-backed national AI fund, a subsidiary of the country's strategic semiconductor investment vehicle, took a minority stake. Whether the next round closes at the discussed valuation will show how much appetite remains for Chinese frontier labs still trailing OpenAI and Anthropic on compute and capital.