State Investors Supplied 27% of DeepSeek's $16 Billion Round, The Information Reports
Tencent and CATL remain DeepSeek's largest backers, but state-owned money rose sharply from the company's first round.
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State-owned investors supplied about 27% of DeepSeek's roughly 105.5 billion yuan (about $16 billion) second funding round, up from 2% in its first round, The Information reported on October 30. Tencent and battery maker CATL remain the Chinese AI developer's two largest backers.
Image: Illustrative photo of the Shanghai skyline. Leonard Keren / Unsplash via Wikimedia Commons — CC0
What The Information reported
The report, by Jing Yang and Juro Osawa, cites two people with direct knowledge of the round. According to summaries of the article, the round drew nearly 30 investors and valued DeepSeek at about 615.5 billion yuan.
The state-backed participants named include China Mobile, China Telecom, China International Capital Corporation (CICC), CITIC Securities and China Life. Each put in between 2 billion and 8 billion yuan, according to the report. A national AI development fund invested another 1 billion yuan, the same amount it put into the first round.
Tencent invested 10 billion yuan in each of the two rounds, the report says. CATL and its chairman, Zeng Yuqun, together invested 5 billion yuan in the first round and 10 billion yuan in the second.
| Measure | Reported figure |
|---|---|
| Round size | ~105.5 billion yuan (~$16 billion) |
| Investors | Nearly 30 |
| Valuation | ~615.5 billion yuan |
| State share, this round | ~27% (vs. 2% in round one) |
| State share, both rounds | ~19% |
| Tech companies, both rounds | ~42% |
| Largest backers | Tencent, CATL |
Chipmakers and consumer brands join
New industrial backers include memory maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), chipmaker SMIC, phone maker vivo, Meituan, Geely, Midea, Luxshare Precision, Trip.com and Xiaohongshu, according to the summaries. Many put in 1 billion to 3 billion yuan each.
Among venture and private equity firms, the report says Monolith Management invested 3 billion yuan in the first round and 7.5 billion yuan in the second. IDG Capital invested a combined 6.5 billion yuan across both rounds.
Why the round doubled
The Information reported that DeepSeek doubled the round's target partway through fundraising. The main reason, per the report, was rising black-market prices for Nvidia Blackwell servers in China. DeepSeek also wanted a cash buffer in case of an AI downturn.
State money is not the same as state control
A larger state share does not by itself mean government control. In DeepSeek's first round, according to the report, every investor except the national AI fund had to invest through an entity held by founder Liang Wenfeng. They gave up voting rights and agreed to a five-year lock-up unless the company lists sooner.
Dealroom's summary notes the article does not say whether the second round kept that structure. It also notes the figures come from unnamed sources rather than DeepSeek, and that the piece describes the state share as something that could reinforce suspicions, not proof of government direction. DeepSeek did not comment, according to the summaries.
Why it matters
For companies weighing DeepSeek's models, ownership is now a material diligence question. A 27% state share in the latest round may affect how regulators and procurement teams outside China view the company, even if voting control stays with the founder.
The round also shows how Chinese AI developers are paying for compute under US export controls. Backers like CXMT and SMIC tie DeepSeek more closely to China's domestic chip supply chain. The report's explanation for the bigger round points to the cost of getting advanced Nvidia hardware.
What to watch:
- Whether DeepSeek confirms the round, the valuation or the investor list.
- Whether second-round investors also gave up voting rights.
- Any response from regulators or customers outside China to the higher state share.
- Whether the new capital shows up as more compute or new model releases.
More coverage is on our Artificial Intelligence hub.
How we reported this
The Information's article is behind a paywall, so we confirmed its findings through several summaries that cite it, including Dealroom's. All figures are attributed to The Information and its unnamed sources; DeepSeek has not confirmed them. One summary gave a lower dollar total that conflicts with the yuan figure, so we used the yuan figure. The table is our own compilation.
Published and fact-checked October 30, 2026.
Sources
- The Information, "Behind DeepSeek's $16 Billion Funding: Chinese Tech Titans and State Players," Oct. 30, 2026: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/behind-deepseeks-16-billion-funding-chinese-tech-titans-state-players
- Dealroom News, summary of The Information report: https://dealroom.co/news/info-r9usms-behind-deepseeks-16-billion-funding-chinese-tech-titans-and-state-player/
- BigGo Finance, "DeepSeek raises 105.5 billion yuan in second funding round": https://finance.biggo.com/news/460e0461-1f9d-4fb1-8dc7-3e51c1436ad7
- FourWeekMBA, "State Investors Took 27% of DeepSeek's Nearly $16B Round": https://fourweekmba.com/ai-state-investors-took-27-of-deepseeks-nearly-16b-round/
DailyMech used AI tools to help research and draft this article; it was fact-checked by our editors.