DeepSeek funding round reportedly reaches $15 billion

Key takeaways

• DeepSeek has reportedly raised about $15 billion (around 100 billion yuan), with Tencent and battery maker CATL among the largest investors. TechCrunch reported this on October 22, 2026, citing Bloomberg.
• DeepSeek has not confirmed the round. Tencent, CATL and DeepSeek did not confirm the figures when asked by the outlets that reported them.
• Earlier reports put the target valuation at about 500 billion yuan, which is roughly $75 billion, and said a stock market listing could follow in early 2027.
• The reports came days after the US Department of Homeland Security ordered civilian federal agencies to remove DeepSeek technology from their IT systems.

DeepSeek's $15 billion funding round: what has been reported

The DeepSeek funding round reportedly totals about $15 billion, one of the largest private raises in China, with Tencent and CATL among its largest backers. TechCrunch reported the figure on October 22, 2026, citing Bloomberg. DeepSeek has not confirmed the round.

The company has not announced the deal. TechCrunch said DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment. No company or regulatory filing confirming the amount, the investor list or the valuation had been published at the time of writing.

How the reported round has grown

The round grew in stages. On October 6, Bloomberg News reported that DeepSeek was close to securing at least 80 billion yuan, according to people familiar with the matter. Reuters, which carried the report, put that at about $11.93 billion at an exchange rate of 6.7045 yuan per dollar. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report.

A same-day report published by The Edge Malaysia added more detail. DeepSeek first aimed to raise about 50 billion yuan. Based on signed term sheets, the final total could approach 100 billion yuan. The target valuation was about 500 billion yuan. That report also said CATL declined to comment, Tencent had no immediate comment and DeepSeek did not respond. It cautioned that terms could still change in final talks.

Forbes Italia described the target valuation as about 74 billion. At the Reuters exchange rate, 500 billion yuan works out to roughly $74.6 billion. That is the source of the "about $75 billion" figure now in circulation. It is a reported target, not a confirmed price.

Confirmed vs reported: the key numbers

The table below separates what each figure is based on. None of the figures in it has been confirmed by DeepSeek.

Dollar conversions use the rate cited by Reuters on October 6, 2026 ($1 = 6.7045 yuan). Values in dollars change with the exchange rate.

How it compares with DeepSeek's first raise

DeepSeek was funded for years by High-Flyer, the quantitative hedge fund co-founded by its founder, Liang Wenfeng. It took outside money for the first time in 2026. TechCrunch, citing Reuters, said that June round raised more than $7 billion at a $50 billion valuation. The Edge Malaysia described the same round as about 50 billion yuan at roughly 350 billion yuan. It reported that Tencent was the largest investor in that round at 10 billion yuan, and that Liang also took part.

If the latest figures are accurate, the new round roughly doubles the money raised in June. It would also lift the valuation by around 40 to 50 percent in about four months. Founder control looks set to stay high. TechCrunch cited WireScreen's analysis of ownership data, which estimates that Liang holds about 81.6% of the Chinese operating entity.

The IPO question

The new money is reported as a step toward a public listing. The Edge Malaysia said DeepSeek was expected to restructure after the round closes, ahead of an IPO expected in early 2027. Forbes Italia, citing a September Reuters report, said DeepSeek had approached Citic Securities to prepare a possible listing. No listing application has been made public. The timing, venue and size of any IPO remain unconfirmed.

Why the timing against new US restrictions matters

The reports arrived days after Washington took its broadest step yet against DeepSeek. According to The Next Web, the Department of Homeland Security order was signed on July 24 by Secretary Markwayne Mullin and made public on October 19. It requires civilian federal agencies to remove DeepSeek products from their IT systems and stop buying them. The Federal Register notice was filed for publication on October 20.

The order was issued under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018. It also covers third-party tools built on DeepSeek models and bars the company from federal contracts. DHS said user data could be passed to Beijing under Chinese security laws. It also said the models pose "multiple threat vectors" and could hide malware or security flaws, as quoted by The Next Web. DeepSeek did not comment, and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond, the outlet reported. For another open model, see Recursive Flint, a free 40B coding model built to run on a laptop.

The step builds on earlier limits. These include a Pentagon IT agency blocking DeepSeek's chatbot in January 2025, bans on work devices at the Commerce Department and the Navy, and similar moves by several US states.

What it means

A round of this size would show that Chinese strategic investors are willing to fund a domestic champion while the US restricts its reach. The two named backers come from different industries: Tencent is an internet and gaming group, and CATL makes batteries for electric vehicles. For DeepSeek, the US federal market was never a major revenue source. The order is more significant as a signal to US companies and allied governments than as a direct commercial loss.

The money matters most for computing power. Training frontier models needs large clusters of AI chips. A cash pile of this size would give DeepSeek more room to buy or rent that capacity and keep hiring. The reports did not say how the money will be spent. Our model benchmark and pricing comparison shows how close the competition among leading models has become.

The deal also ties DeepSeek more closely to two Hong Kong- and Shenzhen-listed heavyweights. Both stocks have been under pressure this week, as covered in our report on the Hang Seng's early slide and the China and Hong Kong daily brief. Any formal announcement from Tencent or CATL would be the first company confirmation of the round.

Several things are still unknown: the final amount, the full investor list, the exact valuation, and whether the round has formally closed. Developers who run DeepSeek's open-weight models on their own hardware are not directly affected by the DHS order unless they sell to US civilian agencies. Our guide on running local LLMs with Ollama explains how that kind of local deployment works. Regulation elsewhere is moving on a separate track, as our explainer on the EU AI Act sets out.

Sources

• TechCrunch: DeepSeek reportedly raises $15B days after US restrictions (October 22, 2026)
• The Star / Reuters: DeepSeek to raise at least $12 billion in Tencent-backed funding, Bloomberg News reports (October 6, 2026)
• The Edge Malaysia: report on DeepSeek's funding round and IPO plans (October 2026)
• Forbes Italia: DeepSeek, new round of 12 billion dollars (October 6, 2026)
• The Next Web: US orders civilian federal agencies to remove DeepSeek from their systems (October 19, 2026)
• Federal Register public inspection: Department of Homeland Security exclusion and removal order, document 2026-21447