• 2 min read
DeepSeek eyes $1.5B raise at $71B ahead of IPO
Bloomberg says DeepSeek is seeking about $1.5 billion at a $71 billion valuation and could go public as soon as late 2026.
Image: TechCrunch
DeepSeek is reportedly lining up another massive funding round just a month after raising $7 billion. According to Bloomberg, the Chinese large language model developer is seeking about $1.5 billion in new funding at roughly a $71 billion valuation, while preparing for an IPO in 2027 that could arrive as early as the end of this year.
The company, founded in 2023, drew attention early last year after releasing AI technology described as both more efficient and more cost-effective than U.S. model makers. Since then, its growth has accelerated.
In June, DeepSeek handled nearly 23% of all the tens of trillions of tokens processed by enterprise AI gateway Vercel, according to the company. By comparison, Anthropic accounted for 32%.
DeepSeek has also become a closely watched example of how Chinese open source models are performing close to top U.S. AI labs despite U.S. export controls on chips. Its cloud service runs on chips made by Huawei Technologies.
Bloomberg reports that DeepSeek’s investors include Tencent and Beijing’s National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund. DeepSeek could not be reached for comment.
Recommended reading
Open models are overtaking AI’s front line
AI Editor
Ava covers the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence, from foundational models and research labs to the real-world economics of intelligence. With a background in computational linguistics, she cuts through the hype to find out what actually works. She firmly believes that benchmarks are just marketing until reproduced in the wild.
via TechCrunch
