DeepSeek nears completion of 50B yuan funding at 500B yuan valuation, targeting 2027 STAR Market IPO
On August 26, the South China Morning Post reported that DeepSeek is nearing completion of a new funding round of about 50 billion yuan at a pre-money valuation of approximately 500 billion yuan (about $74 billion), expected to close before end of August. The company has begun preparing for a Shanghai STAR Market IPO, targeting a 2027 listing.
On August 26, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is nearing completion of a new funding round. The round plans to raise about 50 billion yuan at a pre-money valuation of approximately 500 billion yuan (about $74 billion), a 43% increase from the post-money 350 billion yuan valuation of its first round. The funding is expected to close before end of August.
Investors in this round include returning backers from the first round Monolith (Lisi Capital), Shixiang Capital, and CATL. New investors in talks include CPE, Legend Capital, and Stony Creek Capital. Stony Creek Capital is a semiconductor-focused private equity firm linked to ChangXin Memory Technologies chairman Zhu Yiming. Funds with GigaDevice backgrounds and Hefei state-owned investment platforms are also participating.
DeepSeek has begun preparations for a Shanghai STAR Market IPO, with the earliest possible IPO filing by end of 2026 and targeting a 2027 listing.
According to The Information, DeepSeek achieved revenue of approximately 475 million yuan (about $70.7M) in the first seven months of 2026, roughly 10x its full-year 2025 revenue. Net loss was about 715 million yuan, lower than 2025's full-year net loss of 935 million yuan. Gross margin was 44.6% overall in the first 7 months, with API services gross margin at 82.9%.
For comparison, OpenAI had Q1 2026 revenue of $5.7B with a gross margin of about 39%. Anthropic had Q2 2026 revenue of $11.5B and expects 2026 gross margin to rise from about 40% in 2025 to 63%.