The Hangzhou-based company is seeking to raise as much as 50 billion yuan in the new round, sources told Reuters, just weeks after closing its first-ever external fundraising of roughly $7.4 billion in June at a post-money valuation of around 450 billion yuan.
DeepSeek has also begun early preparations for a listing on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style STAR Market, with an internal target of filing this year, though the timeline and terms remain subject to change.
The back-to-back rounds reflect strong investor demand for one of China’s most closely watched AI companies, alongside the rising cost of remaining competitive, spanning computing power, data centre capacity and engineering talent. DeepSeek has posted recruitment notices for an in-house data centre team and is reportedly developing gigawatt-scale computing infrastructure, alongside efforts to build proprietary AI inference chips to reduce reliance on Nvidia and Huawei silicon.
Founder Liang Wenfeng retains tight control of the company through a transaction structure in which external investors’ capital flows through a limited partnership he manages, carrying no voting rights and subject to a five-year lock-up; China’s state AI investment fund is reportedly the only outside party with board voting rights. Liang’s personal stake is estimated at around 78% following dilution, with his net worth reportedly climbing to roughly $36 billion.
The fundraising push follows DeepSeek’s disruptive entry into the global AI conversation in January 2026, when its models matched leading Western systems at a fraction of the training cost, briefly wiping more than $500 billion from AI-linked US equities. DeepSeek’s moves come as rivals Anthropic and OpenAI are also reportedly preparing confidential IPO filings, underlining growing investor appetite for public listings among leading AI developers.
A US listing is considered unlikely given continued Congressional scrutiny of Chinese AI firms, leaving Shanghai, or potentially Hong Kong, as the more probable venue for any future DeepSeek debut.
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