DeepSeek restarts a $7 billion round at a $70 billion valuation — and preps a Shanghai IPO
DeepSeek has resumed its second funding round, targeting about 50 billion yuan ($7 billion) at a pre-money valuation of 500 billion yuan — roughly $70 billion — with agreements expected to be signed by late August, Chinese financial media report. The round had been paused partly over founder Liang Wenfeng's frustration at leaked comments from the first round, which closed in June at a valuation above 350 billion yuan. The company has also begun preparing a listing on Shanghai's STAR Market, with an internal goal of filing this year.
Why it mattersTogether with this week's warning that its rock-bottom API prices will rise 'substantially,' this completes the picture of DeepSeek turning from research lab into commercial giant: two rounds totaling 100 billion yuan in a single year, a valuation doubling in two months, and a state-backed fund as the only voting investor. How China's most-watched AI startup monetizes will shape open-model economics everywhere.
Read in the app — free, in 9 languages
Related stories
Anthropic expects to raise as much as SpaceX did — the largest listing in history — and could file publicly this month2026-08-21Nvidia is paying $6 billion for the machine that builds a rival's models — and hiring 109 of the people who ran it
2026-08-21The doctors and lawyers who grade AI answers are now a half-billion-dollar business — and this one grew fivefold in eight months
2026-08-21Anthropic still leads on business AI spending. For the first time since May, the gap is closing rather than widening.
2026-08-21Alibaba's AI business grew at its fastest pace in five and a half years. Its profit fell about 75 percent.
2026-08-20