As the global competition in large model technology reaches a fever pitch, DeepSeek (DeepSeek), a leading domestic AI company that has always adhered to the principle of self-sufficiency, has announced significant capital movements.

According to insiders, DeepSeek, which was incubated by Huanfang Quantitative, is currently conducting its first external equity financing since its establishment. This fundraising plan aims to raise no less than 300 million U.S. dollars, and the post-investment valuation of the company is expected to exceed 10 billion U.S. dollars (approximately 68.18 billion Chinese yuan). This move marks the company, which has repeatedly declined venture capital invitations, officially entering the global capital game of large models.

Looking back at DeepSeek's development history, its solid financial background allowed it to remain very confident in early research and development. Supported by the financial strength of its parent company, Huanfang Quantitative, the DeepSeek-R1 model amazed the world in early 2025 with its outstanding reasoning performance, and was once seen as a benchmark for China's general artificial intelligence capabilities. However, as the depth of research increased, even top "dark horse" companies faced practical challenges.

Analysts generally believe that DeepSeek's current transformation and fundraising are driven by two major pressures. On one hand, the development of the next-generation V4 model requires an exponential increase in computing power and high-level talent, making a solo approach increasingly unsustainable; on the other hand, several core researchers have recently been lured away by tech giants, and the company urgently needs to optimize its compensation system through capital operations to stabilize its core technical team.

Looking globally, the capital threshold in the AI field is rapidly increasing. At the beginning of 2026, OpenAI and Anthropic set new records with valuations of 852 billion U.S. dollars and 380 billion U.S. dollars, respectively. In comparison, although the domestic market experienced a阶段性 decline in funding for general large models in the first quarter, capital is accelerating towards top players. The recent 5 billion yuan funding round of Jieyu Star, as well as the active performance of Zhipu AI and MiniMax in the Hong Kong stock market, all indicate that capital has shifted from blind following to a deeper consideration of technological barriers and commercialization prospects.