DeepSeek raises about $15B, among China’s largest funding rounds ever, after twice raising its target as it prepares for an IPO

DeepSeek closed a funding round of about 100 billion yuan ($15 billion), one of the biggest ever for a Chinese company, according to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the deal. DeepSeek first sought 50 billion yuan and lifted its target to 80 billion yuan along the way, with Tencent and battery maker CATL among the biggest investors. The money gives DeepSeek more to spend on data centers and new open-source models as it prepares for an IPO, but Anthropic and OpenAI have each brought in over $100 billion, so the gap with US labs remains wide.