DeepSeek reportedly lands $15 billion, days after a US federal ban

DeepSeek has reportedly raised about $15 billion, roughly 100 billion yuan, one of the largest funding rounds in China, according to Bloomberg as summarized by TechCrunch. Neither DeepSeek nor any investor has confirmed the figure publicly.

The timing stands out. According to the report, the money came two days after the US ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek’s AI technology from their systems over security concerns. TechCrunch said DeepSeek did not immediately respond to its request for comment.

CATL and Tencent named as possible backers

Bloomberg’s report, as relayed by TechCrunch, lists Chinese battery maker CATL and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, among potential investors. The public summary does not give the full investor list, the split between backers or the valuation of the new round. All of it should be treated as unconfirmed until DeepSeek or an investor says otherwise.

The report places the round after DeepSeek’s June financing, which TechCrunch described as more than $7 billion at a $50 billion valuation. DeepSeek was also reportedly seeking another $1.5 billion at a valuation of around $71 billion in July, with a possible IPO in China as early as next year. The Hangzhou-based lab is said to be raising its spending on AI infrastructure and on open models for domestic and international markets.

The US order and Beijing’s response

The restriction was covered in our earlier report on the US order and China’s reaction. In that piece, the US side cited security concerns, while China vowed countermeasures and denied claims about distillation. Those are positions of the parties, and DeepSeek has not been quoted directly in what we have read.

The order applies to federal civilian systems. Nothing in the material we read says it limits private customers or Chinese investors, and the sources do not say that the ban influenced any investor’s decision.

A round that dwarfs its Chinese rivals

TechCrunch set the reported round against other Chinese AI financing. Moonshot AI, the developer of Kimi, secured $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation in May, and Manus AI raised more than $500 million earlier this month. On the stock market side, TechCrunch put the value of Zhipu AI (Z.ai) at about $29 billion and MiniMax at about $7.2 billion today; both companies floated in Hong Kong at the start of the year.

Set beside those figures, a $15 billion round would be far larger than Moonshot’s $2 billion. TechCrunch said the expansion could further intensify competition among domestic rivals. The valuation of the new round is not known, so a like-for-like comparison with the listed companies is not possible yet.

The report also says DeepSeek’s earlier funding left control with its founder. TechCrunch cited ownership data from WireScreen estimating that founder Liang Wenfeng, who started the company in 2023, still holds about 81.6% of the Chinese operating entity. How new money changes that stake is not stated.

For readers outside China, little changes immediately. The open questions are whether the round is confirmed, who the investors are, what it values the company at, and how it will spend the money on open models. DeepSeek first drew global attention in early 2025 with its free, open-weight R1 reasoning model.