DeepSeek reportedly raises $15B days after US agency ban

DeepSeek has reportedly raised about $15 billion, roughly 100 billion yuan, making it one of the largest funding rounds in China. According to Bloomberg, as relayed by TechCrunch, the deal comes only two days after the US ordered federal civilian agencies to remove the Chinese lab's AI technology from their systems over security concerns.

Potential investors named in the report include battery maker CATL and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, along with others. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch.

A rapid climb in valuation

The new money follows a June round in which DeepSeek raised more than $7 billion at a $50 billion valuation. In July, the company was reportedly seeking a further $1.5 billion at a valuation near $71 billion, and it has been linked to a possible IPO in China as early as next year.

The Hangzhou-based startup is said to be stepping up spending on AI infrastructure and on open models for both domestic and international markets, despite the restrictions it faces in the US. That expansion could sharpen competition among Chinese AI rivals.

Part of a wider funding wave

Investors continue to pour billions into AI companies worldwide, including in China. Moonshot AI, developer of Kimi, secured $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation in May, and Manus AI raised more than $500 million earlier this month. Zhipu AI (Z.ai) and MiniMax, both listed in Hong Kong in January, now have market capitalizations of roughly $29 billion and $7.2 billion.

DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, who earlier co-founded the quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, which helped finance the lab's early work. It drew global attention in early 2025 with its free, open-weight R1 reasoning model, which challenged the dominance of US AI companies. According to corporate ownership data analyzed by WireScreen, Liang still holds an estimated 81.6% of the Chinese operating entity after the earlier round.