Source | Yuan Media Summit

Industrial capital titans are once again clamoring to secure stakes in DeepSeek.

On October 22, citing Bloomberg, several media outlets reported that DeepSeek had successfully closed a new funding round, raising approximately RMB 100 billion, with CATL and Tencent as the lead investors. This marks the largest financing event in China's AI sector to date.

Originally, the fundraising target for this round was set at RMB 50 billion. However, due to overwhelming investor enthusiasm, the target was first raised to RMB 80 billion and eventually finalized at RMB 100 billion.

The market had already been abuzz with anticipation regarding this multi-billion-dollar funding round.

A few months earlier, DeepSeek had secured its inaugural external financing (Series A). According to Tianyancha, in April 2026, DeepSeek launched its first external funding round, concluding the deal in June with a haul of approximately RMB 51 billion and a corporate valuation soaring to RMB 340 billion.

Illustration: Hurun 2026 Global Unicorn List

During the initial round, Liang Wenfeng personally invested RMB 20 billion, becoming the largest single investor. Tencent contributed RMB 10 billion, CATL's ecosystem RMB 5 billion, while NetEase, JD.com, and IDG each invested around RMB 3 billion.

At that time, reports indicated that investor interest had surpassed RMB 100 billion. However, Liang Wenfeng ultimately accepted only RMB 51 billion from the top bids.

In other words, nearly RMB 50 billion in investor interest remained on the table. This has fueled persistent rumors of a second funding round since the conclusion of the Series A.

Another notable aspect of the initial funding round was that, except for the National AI Industry Investment Fund, external investors were required to hold shares through a limited partnership structure, without voting rights, and were subject to a five-year lock-up period. Liang Wenfeng retained nearly 100% of the voting rights.

By this logic, after raising RMB 100 billion in the second round, the company's control is likely to remain firmly in the hands of its founder. So, what are the investors after? The answer may be simpler than it seems.

01. The 'Big Money' Backers: Tencent and CATL Again

Take Tencent and CATL, which have participated in both rounds, as examples. Tencent is seeking priority access to strategic entry points within DeepSeek's ecosystem. Its RMB 10 billion investment in Series A secures a front-row seat, ensuring preferential cooperation when DeepSeek's model capabilities are integrated into WeChat, gaming, cloud services, and other scenarios.

CATL, on the other hand, aims to leverage synergies in energy infrastructure, including energy storage peak-shaving arbitrage, direct green power supply, and energy consumption quota allocation. Its core objective is to incorporate the largest cost component for data centers—electricity—into its own business portfolio.

One company manages traffic entry points, the other manages electricity. Both are betting on DeepSeek's strategic value as a provider of computational infrastructure.

It is evident that industrial capital is not merely pouring money into the large model sector for financial returns but is also keen to avoid missing the opportunity to align with China's premier traffic platform and cutting-edge new energy infrastructure.

Of course, business synergies and strategic positioning are just part of the equation. More importantly, DeepSeek has demonstrated its commercialization potential to the market.

QuestMobile data reveals that in September 2026, DeepSeek boasted 123 million active users, ranking third only after Doubao and Qianwen. However, its consumer-facing app remains free of charge, ad-free, and subscription-free, with its massive user traffic not yet directly monetized.

Image Source: Quest Mobile

Its true revenue engine lies on the enterprise side, with API calls serving as the primary revenue driver. Confirmed revenue for the first seven months of 2026 reached approximately RMB 475 million, ten times the total for 2025. By September, annualized revenue had surpassed USD 1 billion.

A pivotal shift is reflected in its pricing strategy. Over the past two years, DeepSeek has been dubbed the 'price cutter.' However, in August of this year, it raised API prices by 2.3 to 4.5 times. Despite the price hike, customer retention remained stable without significant churn.

Just days before news of this funding round broke, DeepSeek announced that its web search and scraping API would be charged per request starting November 1, priced at RMB 5 per 1,000 successful requests.

The signals from the product side are unmistakable: The consumer side will continue on an inclusive path, while various enterprise capabilities will gradually move toward profitability.

Meanwhile, DeepSeek has ramped up spending on AI data center construction and continues to develop open-source models for the Chinese and overseas markets.

02. Will It Become the Largest IPO Financing in Chinese History?

On the same day, October 22, Cailian Press reported that Anthropic is expected to file its S-1 prospectus as early as this Friday, with a market-expected IPO valuation ranging from USD 1.8 trillion to 2 trillion and a maximum fundraising target of USD 100 billion, potentially ranking among the largest IPOs in history.

At this stage, Anthropic is still burning through cash. In the first half of 2026, it reported revenue of USD 16.3 billion and a net loss of USD 80.7 billion, of which USD 72 billion was attributable to convertible note accounting costs. Future computational procurement may require an additional USD 750 billion.

However, adjusted metrics have shown improvement, with Q2 inference gross margins rising to 70%-85% and operating profit turning positive, though it is still far from achieving stable free cash flow.

This raises a question: Could DeepSeek, following in Anthropic's footsteps, set a record for the largest IPO financing in Chinese history?

According to comprehensive reports, DeepSeek has engaged CITIC Securities to prepare for a STAR Market IPO. Yan Wentao, a former partner at Hillhouse Capital, assumed the role of CFO in late September this year, with plans to submit the application as early as the end of 2026.

Meanwhile, market estimates suggest DeepSeek's post-IPO market value could range from RMB 1.5 trillion to 2.5 trillion.

As of the close on October 22, the 'king of stocks' by A-share market value was ICBC, with a share price of RMB 8.59 and a market value of approximately RMB 3.06 trillion.

After this funding round, DeepSeek's valuation reached RMB 500 billion, 2.1 times the combined market value of Zhipu and MiniMax.

DeepSeek's sprint toward the largest IPO financing scale in Chinese history still leaves ample room for speculation. However, another question lingers: How will the market absorb such a massive fundraising scale?

So, could DeepSeek's path to going public mirror that of Zhipu and MiniMax?

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