Abstract:
The list of people who invested 100 billion in Liang Wenfeng was exposed. The Information exposed the specific details of DeepSeek’s second round of financing. DeepSeek has raised 105.5 billion yuan (approximately US$15.8 billion) in the latest financing, with Chinese state-owned investors accounting for approximately 27%.
According to The Information, DeepSeek attracted nearly 30 investors in this round of financing,
Tencent, CATL
They are still the two major investors, with an investment of 10 billion yuan. Other investors include two major chip manufacturersChangxin Memory and SMIC
, andMeituan, vivo, Xiaohongshu
and other companies.It is worth noting that The Information stated that
state-owned investors contributed 27% of the financing amount of this round, much higher than the 2% in the first round of financing
.China Mobile, China Telecom, CICC, CITIC Securities and China Life
and other organizations are involved.In addition, The Information stated that due to the continued rise in NVIDIA high-end chip prices and the prevention of AI industry bubbles, DeepSeek doubled the scale of fundraising midway through the financing.
01
.
Tencent and CATL continue to lead the investment
State-owned assets account for 27%
According to The Information, in terms of specific investment details, Tencent and CATL invested the most.
Tencent invested 10 billion yuan in both rounds of financing
, CATL and its chairman invested RMB 5 billion and RMB 10 billion in two rounds of financing respectively .Other investors include
Memory chip manufacturer Changxin Memory and its chairman Zhu Yiming
, andState-owned wafer foundry SMIC
. However, the specific investment amount of the two companies has not been disclosed.There are also companies from the Internet, mobile phone, automobile manufacturing and other industries, such as
vivo, Meituan, Geely, Midea, Luxshare Precision Ctrip and Xiaohongshu
etc. The investment amount of each of these enterprises ranges from1 billion to 3 billion yuan
between.Another noteworthy change in this round of financing is the significant increase in the participation of Chinese state-owned capital.
According to The Information, of the 105.5 billion yuan in financing that has been raised,
state-owned investors contributed about 27%
, while in DeepSeek’s first round of financing, this proportion was only 2%.China National Artificial Intelligence Development Fund
Another 1 billion yuan was invested in this round, the same amount as the first round. In addition, institutions such as China Mobile, China Telecom, CICC, CITIC Securities and China Life are also involved,the investment amount of a single company is between 2 billion and 8 billion yuan
.
▲Amount of capital contributed in two rounds of financing (Source: The Information)
From the cumulative perspective of the two rounds of financing, technology companies contributed to DeepSeek’s total financing
about 42%
of the amount, state-owned investorsaccounted for about 19%
, the total investment proportion of venture capital and private equity institutions ranked third.According to The Information, among VC institutions, Beijing Monolith Management
invested 3 billion yuan and 7.5 billion yuan respectively in two rounds
, IDG Capital invested a total of 6.5 billion yuan in two rounds, Boyu Capital invested 3.5 billion yuan in the second round
.
▲DeepSeek’s current financing amount pie chart (source: The Information)
It is worth noting that DeepSeek’s first round of financing adopted a relatively special investment structure. Except for the National Artificial Intelligence Development Fund,
other investors are required to invest funds in the entity held by Liang Wenfeng, give up voting rights, and commit to locking the shares for five years, unless the company is listed in advance
.02
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Nvidia chip prices rise
DeepSeek’s financing scale doubled
Rising chip prices and demand for computing power reserves
, is an important reason for DeepSeek’s expansion in this round of financing.According to The Information, citing two people familiar with the matter, in the four months since DeepSeek’s current round of financing, the price of a server equipped with eight Nvidia B300 chips has risen from about 15 million yuan to 19 million yuan,
This price is alreadymore than 5 times the selling price of similar servers in most countries
.With the United States imposing restrictions on the export of advanced AI chips and the global supply of memory chips being tight, computing resources are becoming an important competitive variable for Chinese AI companies. DeepSeek not only needs to reserve funds for model research and development, but also needs to deal with the pressure brought by the rising cost of chip procurement.
As a result, DeepSeek doubled the size of its latest round of financing midway through the financing process.
The Information said that DeepSeek is also preparing for the possible bursting of the bubble in the AI industry. Previously, the stock prices of MiniMax and Zhipu, which have been listed, have experienced significant declines, partly due to
The lifting of the ban on the shares of pre-IPO investors brought selling pressure
.The Information analyzed that for DeepSeek, reserving funds in advance under the current market environment is also leaving room for possible industry adjustments in the future.
03
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Conclusion: Multiple capital bets on DeepSeek
From the perspective of investment structure, compared with the model that mainly relies on venture capital and private equity financing, DeepSeek's investors cover companies in multiple industries such as Internet platforms, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, state-owned capital and financial institutions.
The value brought by this type of capital combination, in addition to providing funds for model training and computing infrastructure construction, also gives DeepSeek the opportunity to establish closer ties with companies in the chip, manufacturing, communications and other industry chains. At a time when high-end computing resources are in short supply and infrastructure investment continues to rise, this kind of industrial collaboration is particularly important.
But funds cannot solve all problems. The rising prices of high-end chips and the limited supply of advanced computing power mean that DeepSeek has to face rising R&D costs and computing power constraints. At the same time, as the scale of financing expands, DeepSeek also needs to find a balance between R&D investment, technological progress and capital returns.
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