China’s state-backed China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, known as
the “Big Fund,” is in talks to lead DeepSeek’s first fundraising round at a
valuation of about $45 billion, with investors including Tencent also in
discussions, though the lineup is not finalized. Founder Liang Wenfeng, who
controls about 89.5% of the company, may also invest personally, and while the
initial goal was a smaller raise to support employee retention via stock
options, the higher valuation could lead to a larger funding round to expand
computing capacity.
