Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek has reportedly wrapped up fundraising of about 11 trillion won. The latest round was said to be structured to keep founder and Chief Executive Officer Liang Wenfeng's control.
Reuters and Guancha on the 16th, local time, cited a report by U.S. information technology (IT) outlet The Information to say DeepSeek raised more than 50 billion yuan (about 11.1 trillion won) in its first fundraising and was valued at more than $50 billion (about 75 trillion won).
CEO Liang Wenfeng is said to be putting in 20 billion yuan (about 4.4 trillion won) of equity, with Chinese big tech Tencent investing 10 billion yuan (about 2.2 trillion won), battery maker CATL investing 5 billion yuan (about 1.1 trillion won), and game company NetEase, Inc. investing 3 billion yuan (about 670 billion won). The "National AI Industry Investment Fund" created by the Chinese government will also invest 1 billion yuan (about 220 billion won).
The fundraising was designed to keep Liang's management control. Except for the National AI Industry Investment Fund, investors will invest in a limited partnership managed by CEO Liang Wenfeng instead of investing directly in DeepSeek.
The lockup period is five years, and investors also cannot exercise voting rights. The measure appears intended to limit the impact of outside capital on DeepSeek's governance and key decision-making.
DeepSeek drew global AI industry attention in January last year by releasing an open-source AI model touting low cost and high performance. In April, it also unveiled its latest AI model, V4, optimized for China's Huawei Ascend chips instead of U.S. Nvidia.