Chinese artificial intelligence developer DeepSeek has raised nearly 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in its latest funding round, one of the largest investment rounds in the country’s history, signaling the company’s ambition to compete with Western giants such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
Chinese artificial intelligence developer DeepSeek has raised nearly 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in its latest funding round, one of the largest investment rounds in the country’s history, signaling the company’s ambition to compete with Western giants such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
This is reported by Bloomberg, citing its own sources familiar with the negotiations. According to them, the Chinese startup raised the target amount at least twice during communication with investors — initially from 50 billion to 80 billion yuan, before settling on the final figure. The main investors in the round were battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) and tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd.
DeepSeek plans to use the funds raised to build AI data centers and develop new open-source models for the Chinese and international markets. Thus, the financial imbalance between the Chinese startup and American labs is starting to narrow, although OpenAI and Anthropic are still ahead of their competitors, having raised more than $100 billion each. In addition, like its local competitor Moonshot, DeepSeek is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO).
Recall that DeepSeek caused a $1 trillion collapse in global financial markets in 2025 when it demonstrated the ability to create AI models that compete with Silicon Valley developments, but cost many times less. The company continues to regularly release new AI models, in particular, the September release of the V4.1 Flash model led to a drop in the shares of its direct Chinese competitors — MiniMax Group Inc. and Z.AI Co.
Recently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an order requiring federal civilian agencies to completely remove Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s technology from their IT systems and prohibiting them from purchasing its products or services.
