Investors valued Chinese company DeepSeek at more than $50 billion in its first round of funding, making it the country's most valuable AI startup, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing sources.
DeepSeek has raised more than $7.4 billion in its first round of funding. About $3 billion of that was invested by the company's founder, Liang Wenfeng. Other investors include one of China's largest technology companies, Tencent, which is investing about $1.5 billion, the National Investment Fund for Artificial Intelligence with a funding amount of $150 million, and battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), which is investing $740 million. The first round of funding also includes e-commerce platform JD.com, online game developer NetEase, investment firms IDG Capital and Monolith Management, the newspaper quoted sources as saying.
All investors, except for the National Investment Fund, did not invest directly in DeepSeek, directing them to a trading organization led by Liang Wenfeng. With this financing scheme, the company's founder retained control of DeepSeek, the WSJ notes.
Liang Wenfeng promised investors that the proceeds would be used to continue developing artificial intelligence that could potentially surpass human thinking, the newspaper wrote.