DeepSeek Close to Finalizing $10 Billion Financing with Liang Wenfeng's Commitment to 'Research over Commercialization'

Bloomberg reports that DeepSeek is in the final stages of a funding round worth approximately 70 billion yuan (about 10 billion USD), with a pre-money valuation of around 45 billion USD, which could set a new record for the first round of funding for a Chinese technology start-up.

The media outlet cited insiders revealing that founder Liang Wenfeng, in meetings with investors, clearly stated that expanding the boundaries of technology is the primary goal, not achieving profitability, and promised to continue developing open-source AI models, with the ultimate goal of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The line-up of potential investors for this financing round is quite notable. The National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund is expected to contribute about 10 billion yuan, and Tencent, IDG Capital, and Monolith Capital are also close to confirming their participation. The involvement of the National Fund highlights Beijing's strategic emphasis on this company, seen as China's most important challenger to OpenAI.

However, insiders caution that there is still uncertainty in the negotiations, and the investment amounts and final participants may be adjusted.

DeepSeek was established in 2023 by Zhejiang Huanfang Technology, which is a quantitative hedge fund. Liang Wenfeng himself may personally invest about 200 billion yuan in this financing round.

"Research优先” Going Against the Trend

Liang Wenfeng's statement stands out in the current industry context. After global AI infrastructure investments have accumulated hundreds of billions of USD, the market's pressure for commercializing and monetizing AI companies is increasing daily.

Global peers such as OpenAI and Anthropic are actively exploring paths to go public and diversify revenue sources, yet DeepSeek insists on prioritizing breakthroughs in technology.

This philosophy is in harmony with DeepSeek's consistent style. In 2025, DeepSeek, with open-source models whose costs are significantly lower than those of similar products, shook up the Silicon Valley landscape and spurred the widespread proliferation of Chinese open-source models like Alibaba's Qwen globally.

Bloomberg Industry Research analysts pointed out that Asian AI models are diverging from the American path, and China, relying on low electricity costs and a vast community of developers, is operating AI tokens as tradable assets, turning the "industrialization" of AI into a path that has propelled Asian AI software stocks to rise 11.3% year-to-date.

While the fundraising progresses, DeepSeek is extending its business reach into the field of Agentic AI, aiming to place autonomous AI applications that can perform tasks without human intervention, aligning with the current global enthusiasm for this race.