The Chinese AI startup is in preliminary talks for a second round at a roughly $71 billion valuation, three months after closing its first $7 billion raise.
DeepSeek is in preliminary talks for a second funding round that would value the Chinese AI company at roughly $71 billion, a 37% jump from the $52 billion valuation it secured just weeks ago.
The company closed its first-ever round of funding near the end of May, raising $7 billion, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing three sources. The new round is still at an early stage, with details not yet finalized, the sources said.
The accelerated fundraising schedule reflects DeepSeek's need for more capital to build its own data center and acquire additional AI chips, the FT reported. The company's push into AI agents is also driving higher demand for computing power, the sources added.
DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng was the largest investor in the first round, putting about $3 billion of his own money into the company.
The proceeds from the initial funding are being used to strengthen infrastructure and hire more AI researchers as competition in China and globally intensifies. DeepSeek emerged as a leader in AI research last year when it released its open-source R1 reasoning model, which matched the performance of leading Western systems but was trained on more efficient methods.
The news comes as regulators move toward greater oversight of advanced AI. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis on Tuesday proposed a U.S.-led standards body to independently test AI models for national security threats before release. He said artificial general intelligence is "probably only a few short years away," leaving a "precious window" to establish oversight.
The White House has already moved toward pre-release review. A June executive order sought voluntary access to frontier models for up to 30 days before release to test advanced cyber capabilities. Google DeepMind and Microsoft were among the companies that agreed to provide models for federal national security testing.
Microsoft, a key competitor in AI, saw its shares slip 1.1% to $386.68 on Tuesday, giving it an Alpha Score of 60 out of 100, a moderate rating.
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