Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek is reportedly close to securing at least $12 billion in new funding, as investors continue to pour massive amounts of capital into leading AI companies.
According to Bloomberg, the funding round could reach 100 billion yuan, or about $15 billion, based on signed term sheets. The final amount, however, could still change as negotiations continue.
DeepSeek had initially targeted around 50 billion yuan, but investor interest reportedly exceeded expectations following the release of its latest AI model.
Tencent, CATL Among Major Investors
Major companies including Tencent Holdings and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) are reportedly among the investors committing substantial amounts to the funding round.
The strong investor interest highlights growing confidence in DeepSeek as competition intensifies between Chinese and US AI companies.
DeepSeek’s latest V4 Flash model has attracted attention for its performance against leading AI models from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, while reportedly maintaining lower operating costs.
The company plans to use the new capital to expand its computing capacity and develop new AI models.
DeepSeek is also preparing for a potential initial public offering and plans to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei AI accelerators at a data centre under construction in Inner Mongolia.
OpenAI Also Pursuing Massive Funding
DeepSeek’s fundraising comes as other major AI companies pursue increasingly large capital raises.
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, closed a funding round in March with $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion, according to the company.
The company is reportedly in discussions with investors to raise at least another $30 billion, potentially at a valuation of around $1.4 trillion.
If completed on those terms, the proposed deal would represent a significant increase from OpenAI’s latest completed valuation.
Anthropic Eyes Valuation Above $2 Trillion
Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is also seeing its valuation expectations rise sharply.
The company was valued at $965 billion after raising $65 billion in its Series H funding round in May.
However, Anthropic is now moving towards a potential public listing, with its September IPO prospectus reportedly indicating a targeted valuation between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion.
That would be more than twice the company's private valuation from May.
Anthropic reported nearly $4.6 billion in revenue in 2025, alongside a $42 billion net loss. The company also outlined approximately $518 billion in future cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in its IPO prospectus.
AI Investment Race Intensifies
DeepSeek’s reported funding round underscores the extraordinary amount of capital now flowing into the AI industry.
While investors are betting on the long-term commercial potential of frontier AI, companies are simultaneously facing enormous computing, infrastructure and energy costs required to train and operate increasingly advanced models.
The fundraising efforts by DeepSeek, OpenAI and Anthropic demonstrate how the AI race is increasingly becoming a capital-intensive competition, with access to computing infrastructure and funding potentially becoming as important as the underlying technology.
Source: Nairametrics
Impressive funding by Tencent
Deepseek is poised to rival openai, anthropic and Gemini