China's DeepSeek to raise fresh capital at $74 billion valuation ahead of onshore IPO, sources say

HONG KONG/BEIJING, July 15 (Reuters) - Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is readying to motorboat a caller fundraising circular astatine a valuation of astir 500 cardinal yuan ($74 billion) up of a imaginable mainland archetypal nationalist offering, 2 radical with cognition of ‌the substance said.

The program comes conscionable weeks aft the Hangzhou-based company, which drew planetary attraction with its low-cost AI models ‌in 2025, raised astir $7.4 cardinal successful June a post-money valuation of astir 450 cardinal yuan, the radical said.

The back-to-back fundraising plans underscore beardown capitalist appetite for 1 of China's ​most intimately watched AI companies, but besides constituent to the rising costs of competing successful AI, which requires ample amounts of computing power, data-centre capableness and engineering talent.

DeepSeek is looking to rise arsenic overmuch arsenic 50 cardinal yuan successful the caller backing round, according to a 3rd idiosyncratic briefed connected the matter.

It has besides started aboriginal deliberations connected a imaginable IPO connected Shanghai's Nasdaq-style STAR Market, the 3 sources and 2 different radical ‌with cognition of the program said.

The institution has ⁠set an interior people to implicit an IPO filing this year, 1 of them said.

All the radical declined to beryllium identified due to the fact that the accusation is not public. The fundraising and IPO plans are astatine aboriginal stages ⁠and presumption and timetable whitethorn change, they said.

DeepSeek did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Bloomberg News archetypal reported connected Tuesday that DeepSeek was preparing for a imaginable IPO filing, portion the Financial Times reported that the institution was weighing a caller fundraising circular astatine a valuation of astatine slightest ​480 ​billion yuan.

RISING COSTS

DeepSeek shook planetary exertion markets past twelvemonth aft releasing models that ​appeared to rival starring U.S. systems astatine little grooming ‌and operating costs.

Soon aft its maiden fundraising circular successful June, DeepSeek said it planned to treble unit crossed departments, including successful areas specified arsenic information centres and AI agents, systems susceptible of performing tasks with constricted prompting.

Some of those initiatives volition necessitate important superior expenditure. Reuters reported earlier this period that DeepSeek was looking to make its ain AI inference spot and had discreetly accrued hiring of chip-design engineers for the project.

DeepSeek had agelong stood retired successful China's AI assemblage for rejecting extracurricular funding. Founder Liang Wenfeng had mostly bankrolled the institution utilizing ‌his quantitative hedge money High-Flyer earlier its caller outer financing , sources antecedently told ​Reuters.