Deepseek nears at least $12B funding with CATL, Tencent backing as V4-Flash drives interest
Deepseek is reported to be close to raising at least $12 billion (people say the total could approach $15 billion) in a new funding round, with battery maker CATL and Tencent taking the largest stakes. The Chinese AI startup’s V4-Flash model has been cited as the main driver of investor interest; Deepseek plans to restructure toward an IPO in early 2027, is building a data center with at least 160,000 Huawei AI chips, and is developing its own inference chip after briefly pausing the round following founder Liang Wenfeng’s viral comments about Nvidia reliance.