DeepSeek reportedly nears $12 billion round as Tencent and CATL commit largest sums
The funding round at Chinese AI company DeepSeek has, according to Bloomberg, grown far beyond the company's own target: at least 80 billion yuan (around $12 billion) is said to be close to secured, and the final total could approach 100 billion yuan based on signed term sheets. Battery maker CATL and WeChat owner Tencent are said to stand behind some of the largest contributions, and the round is expected to close soon. Everything traces back to anonymous sources — none of the companies has confirmed anything.
What is said to have happened
Bloomberg News reported on 6 October 2026, citing people said to be familiar with the matter, that DeepSeek is in the process of closing a funding round of at least 80 billion yuan — roughly $12 billion. The report was carried by Reuters, The Next Web and The Decoder. At the same time, Reuters noted that it could not immediately verify the report (Reuters via MSN, 534dbd6b).
The figure is far above the company's original goal. According to The Decoder, citing Bloomberg, DeepSeek had initially aimed to raise around $7.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $75 billion. Bloomberg also describes the round as preparation for an IPO in early 2027. Based on signed term sheets, the final total could, according to the sources, approach 100 billion yuan (Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance, 37aef2dd).
For a company previously known for training large models with relatively modest resources, a round at this level would mark a clear shift — toward capital-intensive scaling and a formal ownership structure with a stock listing in sight. Since none of the figures has been published by the company itself, they should be read as a snapshot of ongoing negotiations.
Where the money is coming from
Two names stand out. CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology) and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, are both said, according to Bloomberg's sources, to have committed some of the largest amounts in the round, which is expected to close soon.
Tencent is not a new investor. It stood behind the largest single investment in the previous round — 10 billion yuan — and is reported by Bloomberg to aim to integrate AI into its own platforms. That previous round, totaling 50 billion yuan, valued DeepSeek at roughly 350 billion yuan. A new round of 80–100 billion yuan in a company recently valued at 350 billion implies — as our own analysis of the figures — a substantially higher implied valuation, but none of the sources gives an exact new figure beyond the original target of around $75 billion.
The companies themselves are staying quiet. CATL, according to Bloomberg, declined to comment. Tencent had no immediate comment, and DeepSeek did not respond to a request — the request landed during a Chinese public holiday (37aef2dd).
What is driving investor interest
Bloomberg points to two factors.
The first is the V4 Flash model. According to Bloomberg, the launch created a wave of investor interest because it — as Bloomberg characterizes it — set new expectations for cost versus performance compared with the leaders Anthropic and OpenAI. That is Bloomberg's assessment, not an independent benchmark — but it explains the timing: the capital inflow follows directly after a model release the publisher views as competitive on price-performance.
The second is compute. DeepSeek plans, according to the report, to install at least 160,000 Huawei accelerators in a massive data center the company is building in Inner Mongolia. It could become one of the largest known clusters of Huawei AI chips. A buildout like this requires capital, and gives investors a concrete explanation for what the money will be spent on (37aef2dd).
The road toward an IPO
The plan, as the sources describe it, is stepwise: first the funding round closes. Then the company will be restructured to prepare for a stock listing, according to Bloomberg's sources.
Already in September, Reuters — carried by The Next Web — reported that DeepSeek had secured CITIC Securities to prepare for a possible listing on the Shanghai stock exchange's STAR Market, the exchange segment for technology companies. Neither the timing, valuation nor scale of the listing has been determined. Early 2027 is a stated plan, not a confirmed deal (The Next Web, c1527f1a).
The bumpy road here
The round has not been painless. In July, negotiations were — according to Bloomberg, citing Yicai — briefly paused after comments widely attributed to founder Liang Wenfeng about US-China AI competition and dependence on Nvidia went viral on social media. The comments were not confirmed, according to the reports, but they were enough to freeze the deal temporarily (37aef2dd).
The episode highlights a tension running through the entire round: DeepSeek operates at the intersection of commercial capital, geopolitically sensitive technology and a founder who has traditionally kept a low profile. The fact that both a battery company and a platform conglomerate now stand behind the largest cheques places the company squarely in China's push for self-sufficiency in AI and semiconductors — without any of the parties publicly framing it that way.
What is actually confirmed
The answer is: very little. The entire picture comes from anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg. Reuters, which carried the report, said it could not immediately verify it. None of the three companies involved has commented.
That means all the key figures — 80 billion yuan, 100 billion yuan, the original 50 billion, the 350 billion valuation, the Huawei cluster, the early-2027 timing — are secondary reporting that could change before the round closes. That is our conclusion based on the sources' characterization of the matter as unfinished negotiations, not a statement from Bloomberg itself. The currency conversions also vary slightly between publishers, so the yuan amounts cannot be read as exact dollar figures.
What still makes the reporting worth following is its consistency across several publications carrying the report, and its level of detail: named investors, a previous round level, an engaged securities firm and a concrete infrastructure plan form a coherent picture. If the round closes as the sources predict, the figures can be publicly verified — and then an IPO process on the STAR Market will force far more openness than DeepSeek has ever provided.
Until that happens, the story stands as it is: a report of a multibillion-dollar capital round, told through sources who want to remain unnamed.
Sources: Bloomberg News via Yahoo Finance (37aef2dd), Reuters via MSN (534dbd6b), The Next Web (c1527f1a), The Decoder (b10dbaab).