THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • The Information reports the round has closed at about 100 billion yuan, which it puts at nearly $16 billion; Reuters converted the same yuan figure to about $15 billion.
  • The pre-money valuation is reported at about 500 billion yuan (roughly $74 billion), double the initial 50-billion-yuan target for the raise.
  • Tencent and CATL are described as among the biggest investors in a group of more than 15; DeepSeek has made no public statement.

DeepSeek, the Chinese developer of open-weight language models, has closed its second outside funding round, according to The Information, as summarized by AI Weekly on October 30. DeepSeek has not commented publicly, and none of the reports cite a statement from the company.

What has been reported

All the outlets agree on the core figure in Chinese currency: about 100 billion yuan, double the 50 billion yuan the company first set out to raise. Bloomberg, cited by The Daily Star, said the target had been raised in steps, first to 80 billion and then to 100 billion yuan as investor demand grew. The dollar figure differs by outlet. Reuters, citing four people familiar with the matter on October 22, converted the amount to about $14.98 billion, while The Information's headline describes the closed round as nearly $16 billion. The articles do not explain the gap, so the yuan amount is the more reliable reference.

The pre-money valuation is reported at about 500 billion yuan, which AI Weekly translates to roughly $74 billion. That is up from about 350.88 billion yuan (around $52 billion) recorded in filings for DeepSeek's June round, when it raised $7.4 billion in what Reuters called its first external financing. This makes the new deal a second raise rather than the company's first outside capital.

Who is investing

Reuters named battery maker CATL and Tencent, both existing shareholders, as among the largest backers, alongside more than a dozen others including Meituan, Geely, Midea, NetEase, chipmaker GigaDevice, Boyu Capital, CPE, Legend Capital and IDG Capital. AI Weekly adds that CATL put in 10 billion yuan on top of an earlier 5 billion. The original headline from The Information, as reproduced by AI Weekly, says the round was led by China's state-backed chip investment vehicle, known as the Big Fund; that detail could not be checked in the text available, and the Reuters report of October 22 did not list it among the investors.

Why it matters

The raise brings DeepSeek's reported funding this year to more than $22 billion, according to AI Weekly. Reuters reported in September that the company had hired CITIC Securities to prepare a possible listing on Shanghai's STAR Market, though no filing has been announced.