DeepSeek Nears $12B Funding Round as Chinese AI Startup Eyes 2027 IPO

Chinese AI developer DeepSeek is on the verge of securing $12 billion in fresh capital, surpassing its original fundraising goal as it prepares for a public listing next year.

Tech conglomerate Tencent and battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. are leading the investment round, which is expected to close in the coming weeks. The startup initially sought approximately $7.4 billion (50 billion yuan) but saw overwhelming investor appetite following the launch of its newest AI model.

Term sheets already signed suggest the final tally could climb as high as $15 billion, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

DeepSeek's planned listing represents one of the most closely watched Chinese market debuts in recent years. The company joins domestic rival Moonshot, which is also targeting an early 2027 initial public offering after completing a funding round at a $50 billion valuation.

The IPO preparations come as Chinese AI startups compete for investor capital and market position against both domestic competitors and established U.S. technology firms.

DeepSeek captured international attention in early 2025 when it unveiled an AI model that matched the performance of leading American systems while requiring significantly fewer Nvidia chips. The announcement sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and financial markets, challenging assumptions about the computational resources necessary for advanced AI development.

More recently, unnamed sources told The Information that the company has more than doubled its annualized revenue run rate over recent months, now reaching $1 billion.

As AI companies scale, merchants are grappling with how to integrate AI agents into their sales infrastructure. Pavan HS, senior director of product for agentic commerce at Visa, noted that retailers view these agents as just another sales channel requiring the same attention to payments, fraud prevention, loyalty programmes, returns, and customer service.

At the end of the day, for merchants, agentic commerce is just another sales channel. The two things that they care about is being trustworthy and making it convenient for their consumers.

The commerce journey begins well before checkout. A shopper planning a winter trip to Norway might ask an AI assistant to find a suitable jacket, requiring merchants to provide structured product data that allows agents to connect "Norway in winter" with appropriate coat features. Different agents access this information through varying protocols or web crawling, leaving retailers to decide where and how to expose their catalogues.

Some merchants might choose to sell on other AI platforms, and some merchants might choose to build their own chatbot. There are pros and cons associated with each of these approaches.