DeepSeek takes its first outside money: $7B from IDG, CATL, Tencent, JD and NetEase

Tencent put in 10 billion yuan, CATL 5 billion, JD.com, NetEase and IDG Capital 3 billion each, and the National AI Industry Investment Fund 1 billion. The timing in the roundup is late. Reports of the completed round surfaced in mid-June. A July filing by one Chinese investor implied a valuation of 350.88 billion yuan. Most investors bought into a limited partnership managed by Liang, not DeepSeek itself, and face a five-year lock-up. Only the state fund invested directly, keeps voting rights and is exempt from the lock-up. A second round is already in motion. Bloomberg reported in August that DeepSeek resumed a raise of close to $8 billion at a valuation near $74 billion. The process had been paused after leaked remarks from Liang to investors. Reuters reported the plan came ahead of a possible mainland IPO. For AI founders, the round shows that a frontier lab can take billions without giving up control, using non-voting, locked-up capital. It also signals that compute costs are pushing even a self-funded lab to outside money. Reuters tied the back-to-back raises to the rising cost of computing power, data centers and talent. Rivals now face a competitor backed by Chinese strategic and state capital.