{"id":62023,"date":"2026-06-04T11:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/62023\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T11:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:34:14","slug":"deepseek-nears-us7b-haul-in-first-ever-funding-round-with-backing-from-tencent-catl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/62023\/","title":{"rendered":"DeepSeek nears US$7b haul in first-ever funding round, with backing from Tencent, CATL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese artificial intelligence start-up <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/deepseek?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DeepSeek<\/a> is finalising its first external fundraising round, securing over 50 billion yuan (US$7.4 billion) at a valuation of just under US$60 billion, according to people familiar with the matter \u2013 marking a six-fold leap from its US$10 billion valuation in April.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The blockbuster round highlights intensifying global competition and a shifting strategy for the AI breakout star, which had previously resisted external capital.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Market-oriented investors and Chinese tech giants have committed about 30 billion yuan to the round, one of the people said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">They include Tencent Holdings, which was expected to invest 10 billion yuan, while NetEase and JD.com were each set to contribute about 3 billion yuan. Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), the world\u2019s largest electric-vehicle battery maker, was expected to invest about 5 billion yuan, one of the people said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">This round was also expected to be joined by a number of venture capital firms, including IDG Capital, Monolith, Loyal Valley Capital and Shixiang Tech, the people said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">DeepSeek\u2019s founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng is reportedly committing around 20 billion yuan of his own capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek is finalising its first external fundraising round, securing over 50 billion yuan (US$7.4&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6744,53,3013,11270,2699,35364,6010,933,35496,24534,9755,35498,157,35497,1414,10539],"class_list":["post-62023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agi","tag-agi","tag-anthropic","tag-artificial-general-intelligence","tag-ascend","tag-beijing","tag-catl","tag-deepseek","tag-huawei-technologies","tag-idg-capital","tag-jd-com","tag-liang-wenfeng","tag-netease","tag-openai","tag-qcc-com","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-tencent-holdings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}