DeepSeek's first-round funding valuation doubled in a matter of weeks to $45 billion, with a leading large fund participating as the anchor investor

BlockBeats News, May 6th, The Financial Times reported that the China National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (referred to as the "Big Fund") is in talks to lead the first external financing round of DeepSeek, with a valuation of approximately $45 billion. Just a few weeks ago when the negotiations started, the valuation was around $20 billion. Tencent and Alibaba are also in talks to invest, but the final participants have not been confirmed yet.

Founder Liang Wenfeng may participate in the investment as an individual. Through personal holdings and associated entities, he controls 89.5% of DeepSeek's shares. According to a previous report by The Financial Times, Liang Wenfeng's initial idea was simple, to symbolically raise some money for option pricing to prevent researchers from being poached by competitors with higher salaries. As the valuation soared, he began to consider raising more funds to be used for future computing power investments.

The Big Fund is China's largest national-level semiconductor investment tool, raising $47 billion in its third phase in 2024. Its investment targets include leading chip companies such as SMIC and Changjiang Storage. It has never publicly invested in large-scale companies before.