DeepSeek targets RMB 100 billion round with more industrial backing
The AMW Read
Doubling the reported round target to approximately $15.2 billion meaningfully updates DeepSeek's financing baseline and links foundation-model competition to industrial capital at structural scale.
DeepSeek targets RMB 100 billion round with more industrial backing
DeepSeek's second funding round is nearing completion at roughly RMB 100 billion, or about $15.2 billion using the article's exchange-rate assumptions, according to Caijing reporting cited by 36Kr Japan. That doubles the initial target while leaving the reported pre-money valuation at RMB 500 billion. Existing and new investors are expected to contribute roughly half each. CATL plans to invest another RMB 10 billion, exceeding its approximately RMB 5 billion contribution in the first round. Prospective new investors include Geely, Legend Capital and CPE.
The proposed financing connects foundation-model competition with industrial capital at a substantial scale. The report identifies model research and computing capacity as intended uses of the expanded funding. Raising twice as much at an unchanged pre-money valuation would increase dilution while giving DeepSeek more capital to fund those costs. Separately, the article cites The Information's report that annualized revenue has reached about $1 billion, more than double its level several months earlier; that run rate is distinct from recognized annual revenue.
For investors, the concrete checkpoint is whether the round closes on the reported terms and whether revenue growth supports the spending it enables. The article also cites Bloomberg reporting that DeepSeek plans to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei Ascend 950DT chips for inference at a data center under construction in Inner Mongolia, while continuing to use Nvidia chips for training. These remain reported plans, so the financing target and hardware deployment should not be treated as completed milestones.
