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May 6, 2026 • Julie Bort

DeepSeek hits $45B valuation in first funding round

DeepSeek hits $45B valuation in first funding round DeepSeek hits $45B valuation in first funding round DeepSeek hits $45B valuation in first funding round

DeepSeek could hit $45B valuation from its first investment round

Overview

DeepSeek is in talks to raise its first round of venture capital, with its potential valuation soaring from $20 billion to $45 billion in just a few weeks, according to reports from the Financial Times and Bloomberg.

Key Details

  • Breakthrough Achievement: The Chinese AI lab gained prominence in early 2025 after launching a large language model that:

    • Trained on a fraction of the compute power compared to big U.S. models (OpenAI, Anthropic)
    • Developed at a fraction of the cost
    • Kept reasonable pace with top models in reasoning and coding
    • Remained open weight (freely available on Hugging Face)

  • Funding Strategy:

    • Founded by Chinese hedge fund billionaire Liang Wenfeng (controls nearly 90% of the company)
    • Previously operated without external investors
    • Now raising funds to offer employees company shares in response to competitors poaching researchers
    • Led by China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (state investment vehicle)
    • Tencent and Alibaba reportedly in talks to participate

  • Strategic Importance:

    • Optimized to run on chips made by Huawei Technologies
    • Represents China's effort to develop homegrown AI technology
    • Sidesteps difficulty of obtaining U.S. technology and chips
    • Huawei-DeepSeek combo considered a powerful duo for China to rival U.S. AI capabilities