DeepSeek Reportedly Restarts Second Funding Round to Raise 50 Billion RMB
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has reportedly restarted its second round of funding, aiming to raise 50 billion RMB (approximately $7 billion USD) at a pre-money valuation of 500 billion RMB. The signing for this round is expected to be completed by late August and is being conducted low-profile. If successful, this massive funding round and its 500 billion RMB valuation will solidify DeepSeek's position as a leading player in the global AI landscape, providing it with substantial capital to compete with major US rivals. This round follows a first funding round completed in June, which also raised 50 billion RMB at a valuation exceeding 350 billion RMB. Investors in the first round included Tencent, NetEase, JD.com, CATL, and the National AI Industry Investment Fund.
## BACKGROUND
Founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng and backed by the quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, DeepSeek is a Chinese AI company focused on developing open-weight large language models. The company gained global prominence for training highly efficient models like DeepSeek-R1 at a fraction of the cost of US competitors.