CATL and Tencent back Deepseek's ballooning funding round as the AI startup eyes a 2027 IPO
DeepSeek is nearing a $12–15 billion round backed by CATL and Tencent, ahead of a planned early 2027 IPO.
Bloomberg reports Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is close to raising at least $12 billion, and people familiar with the deal say the total could approach $15 billion, above an initial aim of about $7.5 billion at roughly a $75 billion valuation. Battery maker CATL and Tencent are the largest contributors. Interest follows DeepSeek’s V4-Flash model, which set new cost and performance benchmarks against Anthropic and OpenAI. After closing, DeepSeek plans to restructure for an early 2027 IPO, build a data center with at least 160,000 Huawei AI chips, keep releasing open-weight models, and develop its own inference chip.
- The round may approach $15 billion, above a $7.5 billion target.
- CATL and Tencent are providing the largest shares.
- V4-Flash benchmarks helped drive investor interest.
- DeepSeek plans a data center with at least 160,000 Huawei chips.
- An IPO is targeted for early 2027, with open weights continuing.
- Countries
- China
- AI models
- DeepSeek V4-FlashDeepSeek V4-Pro
From the original article
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Deepseek is close to raising at least $12 billion in a new funding round, Bloomberg reports. The article CATL and Tencent back Deepseek's ballooning funding round as the AI startup eyes a 2027 IPO appeared first on The Decoder.
By Jonathan Kemper · the-decoder.com
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