DeepSeek's second funding round of 105.5 billion yuan: investor list revealed, CATL leads

DeepSeek's 10-Billion-Yuan Funding List Revealed: CATL Leads, vivo, Meituan and Others Included

Zhidongxi Download the Client | Exclusive First Look October 30, 2026, 12:39:35 From Beijing Updated October 30, 2026, 18:00:50

Zhidongxi, October 30 — Just now, The Information revealed the specific details of DeepSeek's second round of funding. In its latest financing, DeepSeek has raised 105.5 billion yuan (approximately 15.8 billion US dollars), with Chinese state-owned investors accounting for about 27% of the contribution.

According to The Information, DeepSeek's current funding round attracted nearly 30 investors. Tencent and CATL remain the two major investors, each investing 10 billion yuan. Other investors include the two major chip manufacturers ChangXin Memory Technologies and SMIC, as well as Meituan, vivo, Xiaohongshu and other companies.

Notably, The Information stated that state-owned investors contributed 27% of this round's funding amount, far higher than the 2% in the first round. Institutions including China Mobile, China Telecom, CICC, CITIC Securities and China Life all participated.

In addition, The Information stated that due to the continued rise in prices of Nvidia's high-end chips and precautions against an AI industry bubble, DeepSeek doubled its fundraising scale midway through the financing.

According to The Information's report, in terms of specific contribution details, Tencent and CATL contributed the most. Tencent invested 10 billion yuan in both rounds, while CATL and its chairman invested 5 billion yuan and 10 billion yuan in the two rounds respectively.

Other investors also include memory chip manufacturer ChangXin Memory Technologies and its chairman Zhu Yiming, as well as state-owned wafer foundry SMIC. However, the specific investment amounts of the two have not yet 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, with each company investing between 1 billion and 3 billion yuan.

Another noteworthy change in this round of financing is the significantly increased participation of Chinese state-owned capital.

According to The Information, of the 105.5 billion yuan raised, state-owned investors contributed about 27%, whereas in DeepSeek's first round of financing, this proportion was only 2%.

The China National Artificial Intelligence Development Fund invested another 1 billion yuan in this round, the same amount as in the first round. In addition, institutions including China Mobile, China Telecom, CICC, CITIC Securities and China Life also participated, with each investing between 2 billion and 8 billion yuan.

▲Contribution amounts of the two funding rounds (Source: The Information)

Looking at the cumulative total of the two funding rounds, technology companies contributed about 42% of DeepSeek's total financing, state-owned investors accounted for about 19%, and the combined contribution 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 in the two rounds respectively, IDG Capital invested a cumulative 6.5 billion yuan across the two rounds, and Boyu Capital invested 3.5 billion yuan in the second round.

▲Pie chart of DeepSeek's current funding contributions (Source: The Information)

It is worth noting that DeepSeek's first round of financing adopted a relatively special investment structure. Apart from the China National Artificial Intelligence Development Fund, other investors were required to put their funds into an entity held by Liang Wenfeng, give up voting rights, and commit to locking up their shares for five years unless the company goes public early.

Rising chip prices and the need for computing power reserves are important reasons for the expansion of DeepSeek's current funding round.

According to The Information, citing two people familiar with the matter, during the four months of DeepSeek's current funding round, the price of a server equipped with 8 Nvidia B300 chips rose from about 15 million yuan to 19 million yuan, a price that is already more than 5 times the selling price of similar servers in most countries.

Against the backdrop of US restrictions on exports of advanced AI chips and tight global memory chip supply, computing power 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 cope with the pressure brought by continuously rising chip procurement costs.

Therefore, midway through the financing process, DeepSeek doubled the scale of its latest funding round.

The Information stated that DeepSeek is also preparing for a possible bubble burst in the AI industry. Previously, shares of the already-listed MiniMax and Zhipu both experienced significant declines, partly due to selling pressure after the lock-up period ended for pre-IPO investors' shares.

The Information analyzed that for DeepSeek, reserving funds in advance under the current market environment also leaves room for possible future industry adjustments.

03.

Conclusion: Capital from Multiple Parties Bets on DeepSeek

From the perspective of investment structure, compared with models that mainly rely on venture capital and private equity financing, DeepSeek's investors cover companies from multiple industries including 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 industrial chains such as chips, manufacturing and communications. At a time when high-end computing power resources are tight and infrastructure investment continues to climb, this kind of industrial synergy is particularly important.

But funds cannot solve all problems. Rising prices of high-end chips and limited supply of advanced computing power mean that DeepSeek must 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 among R&D investment, technological progress and capital returns.

Source: The Information

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