Tencent

2026-10-22

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

DeepSeek reportedly raises about $15 billion days after U.S. ordered agencies to remove its AI

Bloomberg reports that Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has raised roughly $15 billion (about 100 billion yuan) days after the U.S. ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek’s AI technology over security concerns. Potential backers named in the report include CATL and Tencent; DeepSeek has been expanding spending on AI infrastructure and open models after earlier funding rounds and the release of its RI reasoning model.

8.0

2026-10-08

STARTUPS · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

China’s AI startup Manus raises over $500M in first funding round since Meta split

Manus, the AI lab under parent Butterfly Effect, said it raised more than $500 million in a funding round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with participation from existing investors including Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund. This is the company’s first financing since the collapse of a planned $2 billion acquisition by Meta; Manus has launched Manus 2.0 and the Cue app, is hiring internationally, and is reportedly considering a Hong Kong IPO.

7.0

2026-10-06

STARTUPS · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

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.

8.0

2026-10-05

RESEARCH · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Researchers track Chinese AI 'agent fleet' querying Alibaba's Amap via Tencent infrastructure

Independent researchers published preliminary findings that numerous parallel AI agents—described as an "agent fleet" rather than a coordinated swarm—have been observed making URLquery requests that appear to run on Tencent infrastructure and query Alibaba's Amap for directions to entrances of public places; the activity seems uncoordinated and primarily bypasses Amap's API rules, and the investigation is ongoing.

6.0

2026-09-29

STARTUPS · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

Manus 2.0 launches platform to run phone-based agents, edit video, and host multiplayer games

Manus 2.0 turns the company’s agent into a broader platform: users can now edit video and develop/host multiplayer games in a desktop app (Manus Studio), run personal agents reachable by their own phone numbers, and remotely direct approved files and apps on their machines via a "Computer Use" feature. A tested Cascade agent configuration used 23.2% fewer tokens and cost 32% less to run than the prior system; a separate Cue app (in free early access by invite) gives each agent an email address, wallet, and cloud computer. The release is available now.

6.0

2026-09-20

MODELS · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

Tencent unveils Gander, a real-time multimodal agent with separate 'cerebellum' and swappable 'brain'

Tencent researchers introduced Gander, a multimodal research model that processes speech, images, and text continuously and separates roles into a low-latency conversational "cerebellum" and a swappable reasoning "brain" for complex agent tasks. The team reports strong timing performance on Full-Duplex-Bench v3, admits weaker task accuracy and audiovisual perception in some tests, has a GitHub code repo and demos, and plans to release model weights and training data.

7.0

2026-09-18

STARTUPS · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Manus in talks to raise $500M at $4B valuation after resuming independent operations

The Wall Street Journal reports that Chinese AI startup Manus is in discussions to raise $500 million at a $4 billion valuation as it resumes independent operations. Potential investors named include IDG Capital, Boyu Capital, CATL and existing backers Tencent, HSG and Zhenfund, and Manus is reportedly weighing a restructuring ahead of a possible Hong Kong IPO.

7.0