DeepSeek, Hundred-Billion Financing Tracking, LP Says the Situation Is Still Under Dynamic Changes
A person who is an LP of a fund participating in DeepSeek's investment told *Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily* that the situation is basically consistent with the facts, "but the current round of financing transactions are still in dynamic changes."
On the 13th, some media reported that DeepSeek will complete the second round of financing in the near future, with the proposed financing amount increasing from the previously planned 500 billion yuan to about 1 trillion yuan, doubling in less than half a month. Among them, the proposed investment amount of new and existing shareholders accounts for about half respectively, and the pre-money valuation remains at about 5 trillion yuan.
According to relevant information disclosure, the new investors in this round include Seax Capital, SMIC PE, CPE Yuanfeng, Legend Capital, Geely and other industrial investors. Existing investors from the first round, namely CATL, Tencent, IDG Capital, Lisi Capital and Shixiang Capital, are also on the list of this round of transactions. Among them, CATL plans to add an additional investment of about 100 billion yuan, and its capital contribution in the first round was about 50 billion yuan.
In response to the above reports, a person who is an LP of a fund participating in DeepSeek's investment told *Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily* that the situation is basically consistent with the facts, "but the current round of financing transactions are still in dynamic changes." When the reporter called relevant personnel from DeepSeek's public relations department for verification, the person said that they would "not comment" on the latest financing information.
Trillion-yuan level financing features "increased scale without higher valuation", capital still seeking access opportunities
Doubling the financing scale while keeping the pre-money valuation unchanged at 5 trillion yuan is one of the most special arrangements for this round of transactions.
A securities investment banker pointed out that this model of "increasing scale without raising valuation" is on the one hand because after the first round of financing, the market has sufficient subscription enthusiasm, and a large amount of intended capital failed to enter the first round. The company chose to expand the financing scale at the same valuation to meet the entry needs of more industrial capital. On the other hand, large model R&D and computing power investment are long-term heavy asset investments, and sufficient cash flow reserves can support the company's longer-term technology R&D and reduce the frequency of subsequent financing.
The reporter of *Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily* noted that the financing scale of 1 trillion yuan is already a figure large enough to affect the total size of the equity investment market. According to Zero2IPO Data, in the first half of 2026, the total investment amount in China's equity investment market reached 5.654 trillion yuan. If DeepSeek's financing in this round finally reaches 1 trillion yuan, the scale of a single transaction will be equivalent to nearly one-sixth of the total investment in the above half-year period.
However, for the capital that hopes to enter, the expansion of financing scale does not mean that the available share is equally sufficient.
The reporter of *Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily* learned that there is still capital interested in DeepSeek's share inquiring about the quota of funds that have not yet closed the account, hoping to indirectly participate in this transaction through funds.
Another person who once tried to indirectly participate in DeepSeek's investment through an SPV told the reporter of *Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily* that their capital ultimately failed to be invested in this round.
He further revealed to the reporter that in the process of advancing the capital contribution, there was indeed penetration and screening of the capital source and investors, but the specific screening mechanism was not clearly informed, and the reason for the final failure to participate was not explained. He admitted that in his past equity investment experience, similar situations have almost only been encountered in the DeepSeek project.
This also makes the market's attention to this round of financing extend from which institutions can enter, to what vehicles these institutions use to organize capital, and who can become the investors of these funds.
A batch of funds are intensively raising capital and increasing capital, and capital vehicles have attracted much attention
Going back a month, a number of funds of considerable scale have intensively carried out fundraising, capital increase and filing actions around mid-September, which has left room for speculation around DeepSeek.
On September 15, CATL disclosed two fund investments on the same day, and the total subscribed scale of the two funds involved exceeded 106 billion yuan in total.
Among them, Xiamen Shidai Yiyuan Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) has a total subscribed scale of 57.68 billion yuan. Xiamen Ruiting, the controlling shareholder of CATL, subscribed 44.8 billion yuan, and Ningbo Wending, a wholly-owned subsidiary, subscribed 11.2 billion yuan, with the rest subscribed by the manager Xiamen Puquan. The investment scope of the fund includes the new energy industry chain, artificial intelligence and industrial application of embodied intelligence, etc.
The other fund, Xiamen Shidai Shenyuan Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership), has a total subscribed scale of 49.0001 billion yuan. Mindong Shidai, an affiliate of CATL, subscribed 5 billion yuan, the investment platforms under Runze Technology and Zijin Mining subscribed 10 billion yuan respectively, and Lens Technology subscribed 2 billion yuan. The investment direction also involves artificial intelligence, embodied intelligence and cutting-edge technology.
It can be seen that behind the two funds, there are not only capital within the CATL system, but also industrial capital from different fields such as computing power, mining, and electronic manufacturing.
The new fund of Lisi Capital has successively received capital contributions from many listed companies since September.
In early September, Zhihu disclosed that it planned to contribute 1.5 billion yuan to subscribe for the share of Tianjin Lisi Xingshen Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership). Subsequently, Jinko Technology and Perfect World respectively disclosed that they planned to contribute 200 million yuan and 50 million yuan.
On September 15, Lisi Xingshen completed the filing of private equity funds. Entering October, new subscription disclosures for Lisi Xingshen are still ongoing. Eastern Electric Heating and Zhongwang Cloth each announced to contribute 50 million yuan to participate in Lisi Xingshen, and the subscribed scale of the fund disclosed in the two announcements is 6.02 billion yuan. Among them, the announcement of Zhongwang Cloth clearly stated that the fund is still in the stage of capital increase and subscription, and the final scale shall be subject to the actual raised amount.
It is worth mentioning that funds under Lisi Capital, such as Xinghan and Xingque, have also successively disclosed the progress of additional issuance. Among them, Xingque has participated in the financing of Ling AI. Earlier, Lisi participated in DeepSeek's first round of external equity financing through its Xingling fund by subscribing for the partnership share of Hangzhou Chengli.
The additional issuance of funds under Seax Capital is directly reflected in the industrial and commercial changes.
Hangzhou Shixi Zhaoyi No.1 Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) was established on August 31. On September 18, its subscribed capital contribution increased from 2.785 billion yuan to 3.92 billion yuan, an increase of 1.135 billion yuan. Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Puhua Capital, Shenzhen Asset, Orient Securities, Yanchuang Group and others appear in the list of partners. The 100 million yuan subscribed by Giant Network in the previous announcement corresponds to a fund share that dropped to 2.5510%.
Shixiang's related funds are also absorbing capital contributions during the same period. In September, Perfect World disclosed that it planned to contribute 100 million yuan to subscribe for the share of Shixiang Shangshi (Tianjin) Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership); Century Huatong disclosed that its wholly-owned subsidiary Jiaxing Xingsong subscribed 650 million yuan to participate in the fund. The announcement did not disclose the target scale of this fund.
In addition, ZhenFund, which participated in DeepSeek's previous round of financing, its new fund Ningbo Zhixing Yueheng has also successively attracted listed companies to participate. Xinpeng Co., Ltd. previously disclosed that it planned to contribute 100 million yuan; Dahua Technology announced on October 13 that it planned to contribute 500 million yuan to participate in the fund. So far, the target subscribed scale of Ningbo Zhixing Yueheng has further increased to 3.6 billion yuan.
A number of institutions organizing capital at similar times, superimposed on their existing or reported investment relationship with DeepSeek, have made the final investment direction of these funds highly concerned. However, up to now, the reporter of *Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily* has not been able to fully verify from relevant institutions and LPs which of the above funds will participate in DeepSeek's current round of financing and what their respective investment quotas are.
Apart from investors, a newly established partnership platform under Liang Wenfeng's name also leaves clues worthy of observation.
On August 21, Hangzhou Chengyan Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership (Limited Partnership) was established, with partners being Liang Wenfeng and Hangzhou Cebce Business Consulting Co., Ltd. On September 28, the entity underwent changes in capital contribution amount and partner capital contribution ratio, and the total subscribed amount increased from 4,000 yuan to 6,000 yuan.
"Chengyan" differs by only one character from "Chengli", the platform through which investors entered in DeepSeek's first round of financing, and the executive partner of both is Hangzhou Cebce. The shareholding arrangement of the first round leaves room for association about whether the newly established platform will assume a similar role. However, at present, the partners of Chengyan are still Liang Wenfeng and Hangzhou Cebce, no external investment institutions have appeared, and no external investment is shown.
The reporter of *Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily* further verified with a number of institutions, LPs and DeepSeek about the specific relationship between the above funds, partnership platforms and DeepSeek's current round of financing. As of press time, no clear reply on the specific investment vehicles and capital contribution arrangements has been obtained.
While the trillion-yuan financing is being implemented, DeepSeek's listing preparation process has also surfaced. DeepSeek has hired Yan Wentao, former partner of GL Ventures, as Chief Financial Officer, who is fully responsible for capital operation and financial system construction. Yan Wentao has led or participated in investments in many technology enterprises such as Zhipu AI, MiniMax, ByteDance, etc., and has rich experience in primary market financing and IPO operation.
The outside world generally expects that after the delivery of this round of financing is completed, DeepSeek will launch internal business restructuring, and the IPO process is expected to be promoted in early 2027.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily", authors: Yang Xiaoxiao & Tian Ye, authorized for release by 36Kr.