DeepSeek has raised about 100 billion yuan ($14.98 billion) in its latest fundraising round, Bloomberg News reported on 22 October 2026, citing people familiar with the matter, according to a Reuters account of the report. Battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and Tencent Holdings were among the biggest investors in the round, the report added.
Bloomberg headlined the round as a “Challenge to Leading US Labs.” Two weeks earlier, on 6 October, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese AI lab had initially sought 50 billion yuan, so about 100 billion yuan is roughly twice its first target (our arithmetic from the two reports). Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report.
Business Pill · OPEN SOURCE BUSINESS MODELS
A Business Engineer explainer on how companies make money while giving software or models away. It is a general explainer and makes no claim about DeepSeek.
The key insight: As we read it, the new number is the size: about 100 billion yuan, the upper end Bloomberg flagged on 6 October and about twice the 50 billion yuan DeepSeek first sought, with a battery maker and a platform company named among its biggest backers.
According to Reuters’ account, DeepSeek “has raised about 100 billion yuan ($14.98 billion) in its latest fundraising round.” Reuters converted the figure at $1 = 6.6749 yuan. The sourcing is people familiar with the matter, not a company statement.
On 6 October, Investing.com summarised Bloomberg’s earlier report: DeepSeek was set to raise at least 80 billion yuan ($12 billion) in a round backed by Tencent and CATL. It added that the company had initially sought 50 billion yuan, “but investor demand was far bigger than initially expected,” and that the final tally “could rise as high as 100 billion yuan.”
Today’s report puts the round at that upper end. Investing.com also wrote that “earlier reports had placed Deepseek’s valuation at about $74 billion,” before Bloomberg’s report. No valuation for this round appears in the Reuters account we read; later wire headlines put it at $74 billion pre-money (see the Update below).
DeepSeek’s round as Bloomberg reported it: an initial target of 50 billion yuan and at least 80 billion yuan (6 October), then about 100 billion yuan raised (22 October), per people familiar with the matter. About twice the first target is our arithmetic. Sources: Bloomberg via Investing.com (6 Oct) and Reuters (22 Oct).
Bloomberg’s own post on the report says DeepSeek has raised about $15 billion in its latest fundraising round, which it calls one of China’s largest ever. Bloomberg frames the round as a sign of the startup’s ambitions to compete globally with the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI.
Why the Size Matters
DeepSeek is the Chinese lab whose R1 open-source model made it famous in early 2025, Investing.com noted, and its V4 models were praised for performance comparable to OpenAI and Anthropic models at a fraction of the cost.
An open-weights lab gives its models away for anyone to download and run. Raising about $15 billion means the cash goes into what is not free: computing power, chips and researchers. Bloomberg framed the round as a challenge to the leading US labs; we have read only its headline, and its article is paywalled.
UPDATE, 22 OCTOBER (10:09 UTC)
Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone), a widely followed markets news account, posted wire headlines citing sources: “CHINA’S DEEPSEEK RAISES $15 BILLION IN FINANCING ROUND, SOURCES SAY”, “DEEPSEEK VALUED AT $74 BILLION PRE-MONEY IN LATEST ROUND, SOURCES SAY”, “CATL, TENCENT, MONOLITH, SHIXIANG INVEST IN DEEPSEEK, SOURCES SAY” and “NEW DEEPSEEK BACKERS INCLUDE STONY CREEK CAPITAL, LEGEND CAPITAL AND GEELY, SOURCES SAY”. A second post read “DEEPSEEK LOOKS TO SPEED UP IPO TIMELINE, SOURCES SAY”, with no date given. We have not read the wire article behind the headlines.
Adding the $15 billion raised to the $74 billion pre-money valuation implies roughly $89 billion after the round. That figure is our arithmetic; the headlines give no post-money valuation.
The pre-money figure is consistent with Caijing’s 13 October report, republished by 36Kr, of a round of nearly 100 billion yuan at a “pre-money valuation of 500 billion yuan”. Caijing had earlier reported that DeepSeek was preparing to apply to list on Shanghai’s Sci-Tech Innovation Board before the end of the year, with the goal of listing in 2027. DeepSeek has not confirmed the terms.
Connecting the Coverage
The round lands in a week of pressure on DeepSeek in the United States. On 19 October we reported that the US barred DeepSeek from civilian agencies and their contracts, under an order from the Department of Homeland Security. On 20 October, China’s Commerce Ministry said it would take “all necessary measures” in response, as we covered in China vows all necessary measures.
On the technology side, DeepSeek open-sourced its DeepInfer inference framework on 20 October with support for Huawei’s Ascend chips, as we reported in DeepSeek opens DeepInfer. The Information reported that DeepSeek is helping shape Huawei’s future AI chips, per our piece on DeepSeek and Huawei. Tencent, named as a leading investor, was also among the Chinese firms that Reuters said ordered more than $35 billion of Nvidia’s RTX PRO 5500 chips.
What’s new: a reported size of about 100 billion yuan, roughly twice the 50 billion DeepSeek first sought (our arithmetic), with CATL and Tencent among the biggest backers.
The Structural Read
As we read it, CATL and Tencent among the biggest investors, as Bloomberg reports, put an industrial company and a consumer platform behind the same lab, not only financial investors.
As we read it, the round arrives in the same week the US barred DeepSeek from civilian federal agencies, as we reported; the reports we read do not link the two.
As we read it, the open question is the valuation: Investing.com cited earlier reports of about $74 billion, and the Reuters account of the new round gives no figure.
Bloomberg, as summarised by Investing.com on 6 October 2026
“but investor demand was far bigger than initially expected”
Three Implications
FOR US LABS Bloomberg headlined the round as a “Challenge to Leading US Labs”; its article is paywalled, and we have read only the headline and Reuters’ summary.
FOR TENCENT Tencent is named among the biggest investors in the round, per Reuters’ account of Bloomberg; it was also among the Chinese firms Reuters said ordered more than $35 billion of Nvidia chips, as we reported.
FOR THE VALUATION No valuation for this round appears in the Reuters account we read; Investing.com wrote that “earlier reports had placed Deepseek’s valuation at about $74 billion.”
The framework sets out the pattern: “Close the SCARCE layer (keep proprietary) + Open the ABUNDANT layer (commoditize)”.
As we read it, DeepSeek publishes open-weights models, which anyone can download, while computing power stays scarce; a round of about 100 billion yuan is capital for the scarce layer. The framework was published in March 2026 and does not discuss DeepSeek’s round.
What Is Not Established
The figures come from people familiar with the matter, as Bloomberg reports them; we did not see a statement from DeepSeek, CATL or Tencent. The valuation of this round, the full investor list, the share of the money that is committed rather than paid in, and any listing timetable are not in the material we read. Bloomberg’s 22 October article is paywalled; we relied on Reuters’ summary of it.
Bloomberg reports that DeepSeek raised about 100 billion yuan ($14.98 billion), according to people familiar with the matter, with CATL and Tencent among the biggest investors. On Bloomberg’s earlier reporting, that is about twice the 50 billion yuan the lab first sought.
A note on sourcing. The round size and investors come from Bloomberg’s report of 22 October 2026, which cites people familiar with the matter; Bloomberg’s article is paywalled and we relied on Reuters’ summary of it, read in full. The 6 October figures come from Investing.com’s summary of Bloomberg’s earlier report, read in full. The comparison with the first target is our arithmetic. Earlier facts come from our own pieces, which name their sources. We did not contact DeepSeek, CATL or Tencent. Nothing here is investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
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