🚨 HUGE: DeepSeek just went from open-source disruptor to a $75 BILLION IPO contender, in under two years.
Reuters reports the Hangzhou-based AI lab has tapped CITIC Securities to kick off IPO preparations, targeting Shanghai's Nasdaq-style STAR Market, with a public debut as early as 2027.
This isn't DeepSeek's first fundraise of the year, it's the second. Back in June, the company closed its first-ever external funding round, raising $7.4 billion at a valuation north of $50 billion. Just weeks later, it's back in the market seeking fresh capital, this time at a valuation between $71 billion and $75 billion.
That's roughly 50% valuation growth in a matter of weeks.
Here's what's wild: DeepSeek doesn't strictly need the money. Founder Liang Wenfeng also runs High-Flyer, a quantitative hedge fund with deep enough pockets to bankroll years of research independently. Yet the company is raising anyway, pouring capital into computing infrastructure, model research, and one specific bet, at least 160,000 Huawei Ascend AI chips reportedly earmarked for a massive data center in Inner Mongolia, a direct hedge against reliance on Nvidia hardware amid export restrictions.
The company's annualized recurring revenue has reportedly reached roughly $500 million, a real signal of commercial traction. But DeepSeek remains loss-making, burning cash fast as it races Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and the rest of China's AI field for talent and compute.
Big names are already in: Tencent and battery giant CATL both participated in the June round, with Liang personally committing ¥20 billion of his own capital.
The company that shook Silicon Valley with a cheap open-source model is now positioning for one of the biggest tech listings China has seen in years.
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