China’s DeepSeek to raise fresh capital at $74 billion valuation ahead of onshore IPO
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is planning to launch a fresh fundraising round at a valuation of about 500 billion yuan ($74 billion) ahead of a potential mainland initial public offering, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
The plan comes just weeks after the Hangzhou-based company, which drew global attention with its low-cost AI models in 2025, raised about $7.4 billion in June a post-money valuation of about 450 billion yuan, the people said.
The back-to-back fundraising plans underscore strong investor appetite for one of China’s most closely watched AI companies, but also point to the rising costs of competing in AI, which requires large amounts of computing power, data-centre capacity and engineering talent.
