DeepSeek reportedly raising more than $11.9B at a $74B valuation, led by Tencent and CATL

DeepSeek is reportedly closing a second external funding round of more than 80 billion yuan (about $11.9B) at a valuation of roughly 500 billion yuan (about $74B), according to a Reuters source, with Bloomberg reporting demand could lift the total to 100 billion yuan. The round began in July with a 50 billion yuan target; Tencent and CATL are among the largest commitments, term sheets are signed and completion is expected in October, following a roughly $7.4B first external round in June. The Hangzhou lab has hired CITIC Securities for a possible STAR Market IPO and plans to deploy 160,000 Huawei accelerators at a data center in Inner Mongolia. It is the largest Chinese AI fundraise on record and reshapes the capital gap between US and Chinese frontier labs.