HONG KONG, CHINA - JANUARY 28: In this photo illustration, the DeepSeek apps is seen on a phone in front of a flag of China on January 28, 2025 in Hong Kong, China. Global tech stocks have plummeted following the emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup that has developed a competitive AI model at a fraction of the cost of its US rivals, sparking concerns about the high valuations of tech giants like Nvidia. This development has led to significant declines in tech shares across Asia and Europe, with markets in both regions experiencing notable losses as investors reassess the AI landscape and its potential impact on the industry's future. (Photo illustration by Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
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DeepSeek — the Chinese AI lab behind the free chatbot that briefly triggered a historic selloff in AI stocks, including Nvidia, in early 2025 — has taken outside money for the first time. The terms are unusual enough that the structure of the deal is actually getting almost as much attention as its size.
According to The Information, which first reported the close, DeepSeek raised more than 50 billion yuan — roughly $7.4 billion — in its first round of external financing, valuing the company at over $50 billion, and making it China’s most valuable AI startup.
Until now, DeepSeek hadn’t taken a cent of outside investment. Founder Liang Wenfeng bankrolled the company entirely through profits from High-Flyer, the quantitative hedge fund he also founded.
“Money has never been the problem for us; bans on shipments of advanced chips are the problem,” he famously said back in 2023.
That changed this week, and here’s one of the most interesting parts: Investors in the round didn’t buy equity in DeepSeek directly. Instead, according to The Information, their capital went into a limited partnership controlled by Liang. That structure comes with a five-year lock-up and zero voting rights, meaning that backers can’t easily sell their stake and have little say in how the company is run.
Earlier this month, Reuters had reported that founder Liang had committed 20 billion yuan of his own money in this funding round — making him both the company’s founder and its biggest investor in this round —and added that tech conglomerate Tencent is considering 10 billion yuan while battery giant CATL is looking at 5 billion yuan, which would make them the largest external investors.
Meanwhile, China’s National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, a state vehicle Beijing uses to fund strategic tech sectors, reportedly invested directly into DeepSeek rather than through the limited partnership — and is the only backer that walked away with actual voting rights and no lock-up, according to the same reporting.
DeepSeek’s chatbot has millions of users all over the world, many drawn by the fact that it is free and open-weight. The governance structure of this round isn’t likely to change how the app works on the day to day.
However, it brings into keener focus a shadow that has trailed DeepSeek in many ways since its 2025 breakout: how close is the company to the Chinese state? How does that factor in for users handing the chatbot their data and queries?
DeepSeek already faces bans or restricted use in a number of countries and at some private companies over data-access concerns tied to Chinese law. This development and structure is likely to intensify scrutiny and vigilance from critics who have already raised questions around how closely China’s most prominent AI companies are aligned with state priorities.
Even at a $50 billion-plus valuation, though, DeepSeek is much smaller than its U.S. counterparts. Anthropic closed a $65 billion round in late May at a $965 billion valuation, and OpenAI closed a $122 billion round in March at $852 billion.
DeepSeek’s round is still one of the largest single financings in Chinese startup history — it’s perhaps playing in a different league than the American frontier labs it's often compared to.
DeepSeek has not publicly commented on the terms of the round as of this writing.
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