- Tencent reportedly joins financing as founder Liang Wenfeng plans major personal investment
- Fundraising could value Chinese AI startup at more than $51 billion
China’s leading AI assistant developer DeepSeek is looking to raise more than 50 billion yuan ($7.35 billion) in a new funding round that would shatter China’s record for a single AI financing, according to a report by tech outlet The Information.
This comes as competition among the country’s large language model developers intensifies, driving demand for capital to secure compute, attract talent and accelerate commercialization.
The fundraising could push the Hangzhou-based startup’s valuation above 350 billion yuan ($51 billion), underscoring investor appetite for China’s top AI firms as they race to secure computing power, talent and commercial footholds.
DeepSeek and Tencent did not immediately comment on the report.
Tencent is expected to invest 6 billion yuan for roughly a 2% stake, according to a person familiar with the matter, while “another internet giant has not joined the round for now,” the source said.
Based on reporting by The Yangtzeer and other Chinese outlets, the other internet giant could well be Alibaba.
Founder Liang Wenfeng, who also founded quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, plans to personally invest as much as 20 billion yuan in the financing, accounting for about 40% of the total raise.
The unusually large founder commitment is being viewed by investors as a strong signal of confidence in DeepSeek’s long-term prospects.
The company is reportedly preparing to accelerate commercialization efforts alongside model development. DeepSeek plans to release its V4.1 model in June as an upgrade to its current V4 series, marking a broader shift from a research-driven startup toward a company balancing technical advancement with commercial expansion.
The fundraising comes as China’s AI sector enters a more capital-intensive phase. Tech giants including ByteDance, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are all ramping up in-house LLM development, while leading startups compete aggressively for market share, enterprise adoption and AI infrastructure.
