DeepSeek is in talks with strategic investors for its first fundraising round,
potentially valuing the Chinese AI startup at over $20 billion. The capital
raise, expected in the low hundreds of millions, aims to retain researchers paid
largely in stock options amid rising competition from rivals. The company has
recently seen key staff departures to ByteDance and Tencent. Founder Liang
Wenfeng is also considering alternatives such as a buyback or internal valuation
method if fundraising terms are not reached.
