Tencent and Alibaba Reportedly in Talks to Invest in DeepSeek, Valuation Exceeds $20 Billion
Reports indicate that Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group are in negotiations to invest in AI startup DeepSeek. This would be DeepSeek's first external funding round since its establishment, with the valuation target having been raised from an initial $10 billion to over $20 billion (approximately RMB 136.5 billion).
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by quantitative hedge fund Phantom Square Capital, and has rapidly gained prominence in the industry with its low-cost, open-source AI model approach. Unlike listed competitors such as MiniMax and Zhipu AI, DeepSeek has not yet generated significant revenue, with all its models being open-source and its chatbot available to users for free. Analysts believe that investment from Tencent and Alibaba could hedge the risks of their own AI research and development, and also open a direct channel for future in-depth technical cooperation.
Affected by this news, Alibaba's US stock price rose sharply in pre-market trading, with an increase of over 2%. However, as of now, Tencent, Alibaba, and DeepSeek have not made any official response to the matter.