DeepSeek reportedly halts funding round after Wenfeng’s comments
The Chinese AI start-up is preparing to go public with plans to list as early as this year.
DeepSeek has reportedly paused its second funding round after comments associated with founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng talking to investors about the US-China AI rivalry went viral.
The Chinese AI start-up verbally informed some of its potential investors that the round wouldn’t be going through as expected, Bloomberg reported. The company, though, could still choose to resume the round later.
DeepSeek CEO Wenfeng suspended the round after reports began circulating online over comments he had allegedly made to investors during the start-up’s first funding round, which raised more than $7.4bn, as per the announcement in June.
DeepSeek was aiming to raise at least 10bn yuan in funds in the new deal at a pre-money valuation of at least 480bn yuan (roughly $70bn).
According to unverified transcripts, Wenfeng told investors that the US-China gap in AI development mainly rests in resources and funding, and that the gap in talent is minimal.
He reportedly said that DeepSeek cannot afford to train its current largest models and that the company would not consider competing with the US at this scale.
Transcripts also show Wenfeng commenting on the quality and capability of Huawei’s GPU compared to those from Nvidia.
Talks with investors for a second funding round began weeks after DeepSeek’s last raise which valued the company at more than $50bn. Tencent reportedly pitched in around $1.5bn, and battery giant Contemporary Amperex invested around $735m into the start-up.
DeepSeek is preparing to go public with plans to file its initial public offering as early as this year. The company is also reportedly looking to double the size of all of its departments in a push to compete with both domestic rivals and global leaders in the space.
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