DeepSeek completes 50 billion yuan in external financing, setting a new record for single-round financing in the Chinese AI industry.

On June 16, according to media reports citing informed sources, DeepSeek completed its first round of external financing since its establishment, raising a total of over 50 billion yuan (about 7.4 billion US dollars), setting the record for the largest single round of financing in the Chinese AI industry. After this round of financing, the company's valuation is estimated to be around 338 billion yuan (about 50 billion US dollars), making it one of the highest valued AI companies in China. In terms of contributors, founder Liang Wenfeng personally contributed around 20 billion yuan, making him the largest single contributor in this round of financing; Tencent contributed around 10 billion yuan; Contemporary Amperex Technology system contributed around 5 billion yuan, including Contemporary Amperex Technology and Puquan Capital; Netease, JD.com, Monolith Capital, and IDG Capital each contributed around 3 billion yuan; Zheng Xin Valley Investment and Shixiang Technology each contributed around 1.5 billion yuan. According to sources, the funds from investors need to be injected into a limited partnership managed by DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng, rather than directly into the DeepSeek entity, to ensure that Liang Wenfeng maintains absolute control over the company. External investors do not have voting rights in the company, but can only access priority financial information and have priority investment rights for future financing. All investors' shares have a five-year lock-up period and cannot be transferred during this period. In addition, Liang Wenfeng's team also requires a thorough check of the true identities of all limited partners behind the investment funds to avoid the risk of ownership ending up in unknown entities. This thorough due diligence mechanism is extremely rare in startup financing. The only exception is the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, which directly invests in DeepSeek, is not subject to the equity lock-up period, and has voting rights in the company, with an investment of 1 billion yuan in this round. According to business information, Liang Wenfeng currently directly holds 34% of Deepseek (Hangzhou Deep Search Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co., Ltd.), with a final beneficial interest of around 84.29% and 100% voting rights. If the full amount of over 7.4 billion US dollars in this round of financing is raised, it may set a new record for the size of the first round of financing for domestic technology startups. Some analysts believe that DeepSeek's valuation has jumped from a few billion US dollars in April to over 50 billion US dollars, reflecting the marketization of the value of domestic autonomous large-scale technology, significantly reducing the landing costs of AI for small and medium-sized enterprises along the open source route, and accelerating the layout of industrial capital in the upstream basic model competition track.