DeepSeek at a glance
As of- [1] Equity raised: Sum of the 2 sourced equity rounds in the funding history below (debt, tender offers and rumored rounds excluded), October 22, 2026
- [2] Founded: Wikipedia (retrieved September 5, 2026)
- [3] Headquarters: Wikipedia (retrieved September 5, 2026)
What DeepSeek does
DeepSeek is a Hangzhou-based AI lab that develops open-weight large language models.[1] It was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, who previously co-founded the quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, which helped finance DeepSeek's early development.[1] The company drew global attention in early 2025 with its open-weight R1 reasoning model.[1] Tencent added about 10 billion yuan and CATL about 5 billion yuan, alongside JD.com, NetEase and China's national AI investment fund.[2] Liang retains an estimated 81.6% stake in DeepSeek's Chinese operating entity, according to WireScreen's analysis of ownership data.[1] On October 20, 2026 the U.S. ordered federal civilian agencies to stop buying DeepSeek products and remove them from government systems.[3],[4],[1] DeepSeek had not announced the round as of early October, and it did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's request for comment on the report.[1]
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Company Snapshot
DeepSeek is based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, founded 2023 by Liang Wenfeng.
Recent changes
- Oct 22, 2026Oct 22, 2026Raised ~$15B TechCrunch
- Oct 22, 2026Oct 22, 2026DeepSeek Raises $15B Days After US Restrictions Pulse story
- Oct 17, 2026Oct 17, 2026DeepSeek Open-Sources V4.1-Flash, Opens $0.75 Search API Pulse story
- Oct 6, 2026Oct 6, 2026First reported valuation: $74B (targeted)Rumored Reuters
- Oct 6, 2026Oct 6, 2026DeepSeek Set To Raise $12B War Chest Before IPO Pulse story
Earlier changes (12)
- Sep 24, 2026Sep 24, 2026DeepSeek's Revenue Doubles To $1B Ahead Of Shanghai IPO Pulse story
- Sep 10, 2026Sep 10, 2026DeepSeek Taps CITIC For Shanghai STAR Market IPO Pulse story
- Aug 31, 2026Aug 31, 2026DeepSeek's Road to a 2027 IPO Looks Nothing Like Anthropic's Pulse story
- Aug 28, 2026Aug 28, 2026DeepSeek Hunts Outside Capital Before a STAR Listing Pulse story
- Aug 16, 2026Aug 16, 2026DeepSeek Raises V4 Prices Hours After Topping Agent Tests Pulse story
- Aug 13, 2026Aug 13, 2026DeepSeek Ships V4 Pro, Hikes Prices as It Chases $74B Pulse story
- Aug 6, 2026Aug 6, 2026DeepSeek Resumes Funding Talks, Preps Price Hikes Pulse story
- Jun 16, 2026Jun 16, 2026Raised $7.4B at a $50B+ valuation Tech Startups
- Jun 16, 2026Jun 16, 2026New investor: IDG Capital Tech Startups
- Jun 16, 2026Jun 16, 2026New investor: JD.com Tech Startups
- Jun 16, 2026Jun 16, 2026New investor: Tencent Tech Startups
- Jun 16, 2026Jun 16, 2026New investor: CATL Tech Startups
Funding history
3 equity events · newest first · sources dated per row| Date | Round | Amount | Valuation | Lead investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 22, 2026 | Funding round | ~$15B | — | — | TechCrunch |
| Jun 16, 2026 | Funding round | $7.4B | $50B+post-money | — | Tech Startups |
| Funding roundnot counted | $7.4B | — | — | Fortune |
Equity only. “Equity raised” above sums the rounds with a dated, linked source; rumored rounds, tender offers and secondary sales are listed but not counted, and debt financing is listed separately.
How DeepSeek has been funded
In June 2026 DeepSeek closed its first outside funding round, raising more than $7.4 billion.[4] The round valued the company at more than $50 billion.[4] Liang was the largest investor in that round, putting in about 20 billion yuan of his own money.[2] Two days later, Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek had raised about $15 billion, or about 100 billion yuan.[1]
Investors
Latest Pulse
- Oct 29, 2026Cohere Targets CAD $35.7B Valuation In New Series ECohere announced the initial close of a Series E round targeting up to CAD $7 billion that would value it at CAD $35.7 billion, led by Germany's Schwarz Group.→
- Oct 23, 2026DeepSeek's New Round Nears $16B, Not $15BThe Information reports DeepSeek's new funding round is nearing $16 billion, a modestly higher figure than the roughly $15 billion Bloomberg reported a day earlier.→
- Oct 22, 2026DeepSeek Raises $15B Days After US RestrictionsDeepSeek has raised about $15 billion (100 billion yuan) in a new round, Bloomberg reported, two days after the US ordered federal agencies to remove its technology.→
- Oct 21, 2026Flapping Airplanes Raises $1B | Valuation Quadruples To $6BFlapping Airplanes, a one-year-old AI lab founded by Stanford dropouts, raised a $1 billion Series A at a roughly $6 billion valuation, quadrupling its mark from a $180 million seed nine months ago.→
- Oct 20, 2026DHS Orders Federal Agencies To Drop DeepSeek AIThe Department of Homeland Security ordered federal agencies to stop buying DeepSeek AI products and strip them, including third-party tools built on DeepSeek technology, from government systems over national-security concerns.→
- Oct 19, 2026Why AI Megadeals Are Skewing The Whole Venture Market's AverageThree AI infrastructure megadeals are large enough to distort what a typical venture round even means right now, with the tracked average deal size running at $480 million.→
- Oct 17, 2026Open-Weight Models Now Handle 71.5% Of Gateway TokensOpen-weight AI models processed more than 7 in 10 tokens on Vercel's AI Gateway in September, up from a minority share in June, as spending on them more than quadrupled.→
- Oct 17, 2026DeepSeek Open-Sources V4.1-Flash, Opens $0.75 Search APIDeepSeek released an MIT-licensed update to its V4.1-Flash model and opened its Search and Fetch APIs to all developers at $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests, with no change to its core API prices.→
- Oct 16, 2026China Drafts Export Curbs On 23 AI TechnologiesChina's commerce and science ministries proposed restricting or banning exports of 40 technologies, 23 of them in AI, including large models above 2 trillion parameters and autonomous agents for sensitive settings.→
- Oct 16, 2026Asia Startups Raised $38.5B in Q3, AI Drove 55% Of ItAsian startups raised $38.5 billion across Q3 2026, with AI-focused companies pulling in an estimated $21 billion, or about 55% of the total, according to Crunchbase News.→
Coverage Timeline
newest first- Oct 23, 2026AIDeepSeek's New Round Nears $16B, Not $15B→
- Oct 22, 2026AIDeepSeek Raises $15B Days After US Restrictions$15B (¥100B) New Round→
- Oct 20, 2026REGULATIONDHS Orders Federal Agencies To Drop DeepSeek AI→
- Oct 17, 2026AIDeepSeek Open-Sources V4.1-Flash, Opens $0.75 Search API$0.75 Per 1K Requests→
- Oct 8, 2026REGULATIONSouth Korean Banks Hacked Using AI, CrowdStrike Says→
- Oct 6, 2026FUNDINGDeepSeek Set To Raise $12B War Chest Before IPO$11.93B (¥80B+) pre-IPO round→
- Sep 24, 2026AIDeepSeek's Revenue Doubles To $1B Ahead Of Shanghai IPO$7.5B pre-IPO round→
- Sep 23, 2026REGULATIONChina Probes DeepSeek, Moonshot Over Claude Data Routing→
- Sep 21, 2026AIDeepSeek Bets 160,000 Huawei Chips On Beating Export Curbs→
- Sep 18, 2026REGULATIONRo Khanna Asks Chinese AI Labs To Help Pace Frontier AI→
- Sep 11, 2026AIAI's Model-Release Treadmill Is Accelerating→
- Sep 11, 2026AIAI Agents Breached 395 Organizations In Days→
- Sep 10, 2026IPODeepSeek Taps CITIC For Shanghai STAR Market IPO→
- Sep 10, 2026AIDeepSeek's New Flash Model Beats Opus 5 On Coding Tests→
- Sep 10, 2026AIDeepSeek's New Flash Model Beats Its Own Flagship→
- Sep 9, 2026AIUS Agencies: China's AI Strategy Is Copying Ours→
- Aug 31, 2026IPOWhat SpaceX's Record IPO Means for What's Next→
- Aug 31, 2026IPODeepSeek's Road to a 2027 IPO Looks Nothing Like Anthropic's$7.4B round target→
- Aug 28, 2026IPODeepSeek Hunts Outside Capital Before a STAR ListingUp to $71B valuation→
- Aug 27, 2026AINvidia Backs Chinese AI Models, Warns of CrackdownPolicy risk→
- Aug 27, 2026AIAlibaba's New Qwen Model Deepens China's AI Price War→
- Aug 16, 2026AIDeepSeek Raises V4 Prices Hours After Topping Agent Tests$0.44/$1.32 per 1M tokens→
- Aug 13, 2026AIDeepSeek Open-Sources a Claude Code Rival, Hikes API Prices→
- Aug 13, 2026AIDeepSeek Ships V4 Pro, Hikes Prices as It Chases $74B$1.32/$3.96 per 1M tokens→
- Aug 9, 2026AIDeepSeek's V4-Flash Is Now the Cheapest AI Model to Run→
- Aug 6, 2026FUNDINGDeepSeek Resumes Funding Talks, Preps Price Hikes~50B yuan target→
- Aug 3, 2026AIDeepSeek's Offensive Use Forces a Red-Team Rethink→
- Aug 3, 2026FUNDINGAI and Robotics Still Dominate the Unicorn Board→
- Aug 2, 2026AIDeepSeek's Cheap New Model Is Making Waves Again→
- Aug 2, 2026AIOpen-Weight Models Are Resetting Prices Every Few Weeks→
- Aug 1, 2026AIDeepSeek Ran Cyberattacks Claude and OpenAI Refused→
- Jul 31, 2026AIDeepSeek Ships V4-Flash Update That Beats Its Own Flagship→
- Jul 24, 2026IPOThe Case For a Chinese AI IPO Wave Riding CXMT's Momentum→
- Jul 23, 2026FUNDINGDeepSeek Seeks $71B Valuation, Preps China IPO Filing~$71B Valuation Target→
- Jul 23, 2026IPOChina's AI Labs Race Toward A Wave Of IPOs→
- Jul 23, 2026IPOMoonshot, DeepSeek Both Race Toward IPOs After Kimi Shock→
- Jul 22, 2026AILed by DeepSeek, 10 Frontier Labs Join Crunchbase Unicorn Board in June→
- Jul 21, 2026AIFrontier Labs and Robotics Keep Dominating Crunchbase's Unicorn Board→
- Jul 20, 2026IPODeepSeek's STAR Market Path: A $71B Test for China's AI IPOs$71B pre-money talks→
- Jul 20, 2026AIGemini's Stumble Widens the Gap at AI's Frontier$200B Alphabet cap lost→
- Jul 18, 2026AIDeepSeek Is Reportedly Building Its Own AI Inference ChipIn-house inference chip→
- Jul 14, 2026IPODeepSeek in Talks to Raise $1.5B, Then IPO$1.5B raise→
- Jul 12, 2026AIGoldman Names Its Preferred Chinese AI ModelsPT HK$1,880 (Zhipu)→
- Jul 7, 2026AIChina's Open-Weight Models Keep Closing the Gap$98B China chip self-reliance push→
- Jun 29, 2026AIDeepSeek and Peking University Open-Source DSpark, Speeding LLM Inference by Up to 85%Up to 85% faster→
- Jun 26, 2026AIDeepSeek Open-Sources DSpark, Claiming 60-85% Faster Generation→
- Jun 20, 2026AIHuawei-Led Team Post-Trains DeepSeek's 1.6-Trillion-Parameter Model on Ascend Chips, Not Nvidia→
- Jun 16, 2026FUNDINGDeepSeek Raises $7.4B -- Becomes China's Most Valuable AI Startup at $50B+$7.4B→
- Jun 16, 2026FUNDINGDeepSeek's $7.4B Round Backed by Tencent, CATL and JD$7.4B→
All Coverage
12 most recent shown — all 49 stories are in the timeline aboveAI
DeepSeek's New Round Nears $16B, Not $15B
The Information reports DeepSeek's new funding round is nearing $16 billion, a modestly higher figure than the roughly $15 billion Bloomberg reported a day earlier.
FOLLOW-UP
DeepSeek Raises $15B Days After US Restrictions
AI$15B (¥100B) New Round
DeepSeek Raises $15B Days After US Restrictions
DeepSeek has raised about $15 billion (100 billion yuan) in a new round, Bloomberg reported, two days after the US ordered federal agencies to remove its technology.
FOLLOW-UP
DHS Orders Federal Agencies To Drop DeepSeek AI
REGULATION
DHS Orders Federal Agencies To Drop DeepSeek AI
The Department of Homeland Security ordered federal agencies to stop buying DeepSeek AI products and strip them, including third-party tools built on DeepSeek technology, from government systems over national-security concerns.
DEEP DIVE
DeepSeek Open-Sources V4.1-Flash, Opens $0.75 Search API
AI$0.75 Per 1K Requests
DeepSeek Open-Sources V4.1-Flash, Opens $0.75 Search API
DeepSeek released an MIT-licensed update to its V4.1-Flash model and opened its Search and Fetch APIs to all developers at $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests, with no change to its core API prices.
DEEP DIVE
South Korean Banks Hacked Using AI, CrowdStrike Says
REGULATION
South Korean Banks Hacked Using AI, CrowdStrike Says
CrowdStrike says a likely solo, Chinese-speaking hacker used an open-source tool alongside DeepSeek, GLM, Grok and Claude Code sessions to breach at least seven South Korean banks, exposing data on roughly 68,000 people.
DEEP DIVE
DeepSeek Set To Raise $12B War Chest Before IPO
FUNDING$11.93B (¥80B+) pre-IPO round
DeepSeek Set To Raise $12B War Chest Before IPO
DeepSeek is set to raise roughly $12 billion in a second pre-IPO round targeting a $74 billion valuation ahead of a planned Shanghai listing.
DEEP DIVE
DeepSeek's Revenue Doubles To $1B Ahead Of Shanghai IPO
AI$7.5B pre-IPO round
DeepSeek's Revenue Doubles To $1B Ahead Of Shanghai IPO
DeepSeek's annualized revenue run rate has doubled to roughly $1 billion after steep API price increases, as the Chinese AI lab finalizes a $7.5 billion pre-IPO funding round ahead of a planned Shanghai STAR Market listing.
FOLLOW-UP
China Probes DeepSeek, Moonshot Over Claude Data Routing
REGULATION
China Probes DeepSeek, Moonshot Over Claude Data Routing
Chinese regulators opened a probe into DeepSeek and Moonshot AI after Anthropic accused seven Chinese companies of secretly routing customer requests through Claude to harvest its outputs, sending Alibaba, Zhipu and MiniMax shares lower.
DEEP DIVE
DeepSeek Bets 160,000 Huawei Chips On Beating Export Curbs
AI
DeepSeek Bets 160,000 Huawei Chips On Beating Export Curbs
DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng expects Huawei to begin delivering AI training chips as early as Q4 2026, with DeepSeek planning to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei Ascend accelerators at a new Inner Mongolia data center.
DEEP DIVE
Ro Khanna Asks Chinese AI Labs To Help Pace Frontier AI
REGULATION
Ro Khanna Asks Chinese AI Labs To Help Pace Frontier AI
Representative Ro Khanna is asking Chinese labs DeepSeek, Moonshot and Alibaba to join a binding international agreement pacing frontier AI development, extending a U.S.-lab pacing pledge across the geopolitical divide.
DEEP DIVE
AI's Model-Release Treadmill Is Accelerating
AI
AI's Model-Release Treadmill Is Accelerating
Sakana AI, DeepSeek, and OpenAI all shipped new or re-priced models within the same 72-hour window -- and CNBC's own framing of 'model fatigue' undersells how fast the underlying pace is actually speeding up.
THE VC READ
AI Agents Breached 395 Organizations In Days
AI
AI Agents Breached 395 Organizations In Days
A likely Russian-speaking attacker used hundreds of autonomous AI agents built on OpenAI's Codex and DeepSeek models to exploit PaperCut printer-server flaws, compromising 440 servers across 395 organizations in 48 countries within days.
DEEP DIVE
Value Add Research
- AI & Technology · Jul 28, 2026$1.5B at $71B — DeepSeek 2027 IPO Plan
- AI & Technology · Oct 27, 2026How Does Together AI Make Money? $1.15B Bookings, 2026
- Market & Trends · Oct 26, 2026Biggest Funding Rounds This Week: Oct 19-26, 2026
- AI & Technology · Oct 24, 2026Flapping Airplanes Valuation 2026: $6B After $1B Round
- Market & Trends · Oct 18, 2026CXMT IPO 2026: $8.6B Raise to a $524B Cap Over Tencent
- Market & Trends · Oct 15, 2026Biggest Expected IPOs of 2027: 7 Lined Up, OpenAI Leads
- AI & Technology · Oct 15, 2026Moonshot AI IPO: Q1 2027 Hong Kong Target, $50B Valuation
- Company Deep Dive · Oct 12, 2026Baseten Deep Dive: $13B Valuation, $600M ARR, and Talks at $26B
Related Companies
Shared investors
DeepSeek FAQ
How much has DeepSeek raised?
In June 2026 DeepSeek closed its first outside funding round, raising more than $7.4 billion.[4]
What does DeepSeek do?
DeepSeek is a Hangzhou-based AI lab that develops open-weight large language models.[1]
When was DeepSeek founded and where is it based?
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, according to Wikipedia.
References
researched 2026-10-23Sources & methodologyshow
Where these figures come from
- Fortunemajor outlet1 fact
- TechCrunchmajor outlet1 fact
- Tech StartupsValue Add VC data1 fact
Figures are labelled Reported (a source states it), Estimated, Derived (computed from other facts) or Rumored (in talks / unconfirmed). Rumors never replace a confirmed figure. Each figure keeps its own as-of date; history is preserved rather than overwritten.