DeepSeek takes outside money for the first time at a $50 billion valuation

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has raised more than 50 billion yuan - about $7.4 billion - in its first external funding round. The company's valuation now tops $50 billion, The Information reports. As recently as April, the numbers being floated were at least $300 million at a $10 billion valuation .

The deal structure is unusual. Investors had to put their money into a limited partnership managed by CEO Liang Wenfeng, not directly into DeepSeek. They have no voting rights and face a five-year lock-up period. The only exception is China's state-backed AI investment fund, which invested directly and keeps its voting rights. Founder Liang himself put in about 20 billion yuan, according to Reuters . Tencent and battery maker CATL are among the biggest outside backers. Liang had told investors ahead of the round that he prioritizes foundational AI research and AGI development over short-term profits and plans to keep building open-source models.

DeepSeek gained global attention early last year with its V3 and R1 models . In April 2026, the company followed up with V4, the largest open-weights model to date , which runs on Huawei chips . DeepSeek is also squeezing US rivals on price. The company made its 75 percent discount on V4 Pro permanent , making the model roughly 11 times cheaper on input and 35 times cheaper on output than OpenAI's GPT-5.5. Still, DeepSeek's valuation is modest compared to OpenAI and Anthropic, which are both approaching the trillion-dollar mark . Ad Ad

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