DeepSeek reportedly nears $12bn funding round backed by Tencent and CATL

DeepSeek is close to raising at least 80 billion yuan, or about $12bn, in a new funding round, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

Tencent and the battery maker CATL have committed some of the largest sums, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg.

The Chinese AI lab had first set out to raise about 50 billion yuan. Demand grew after the launch of its latest model, Bloomberg said, and the final total could approach 100 billion yuan.

DeepSeek has not announced the round. At these levels, it would top the company’s first outside funding earlier this year. That round raised about 50 billion yuan at a valuation of $52bn to $59bn.

Founder Liang Wenfeng was the largest investor in that first round, putting in about 20 billion yuan of his own money. Tencent added roughly 10 billion yuan and CATL about 5 billion yuan, alongside JD.com, NetEase...

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