DeepSeek reportedly secures more than $7bn in first external financing
Tencent, CATL, JD.com, NetEase and IDG Capital joined the Chinese AI developer’s first external round.
DeepSeek completed its first external financing, raising more than $7 billion, according to a June 16 IT Home report citing The Information. Reported investors included Tencent, CATL, JD.com, NetEase, IDG Capital and China’s National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund.
Most investors received economic interests without voting rights and faced a five-year lockup, the report said. The national AI industry fund was an exception: its CNY1 billion direct investment carried voting rights and was not subject to that lockup.
The financing brought outside capital into the developer behind DeepSeek’s language and reasoning models. The company distributes an AI assistant and provides model access to developers through APIs.