Chinese AI developer DeepSeek has told investors that it is putting its fundraising talks on hold, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. #🇨🇳 ChinA.I. 🤖🧠🦾🤖
The pause on the new funding round, which values DeepSeek at 500 billion yuan ($74 billion), comes after a leaked transcript of CEO Liang Wenfeng’s investor call went viral last week on Chinese social media and X. The call, which was held in May, laid out DeepSeek’s strategic priorities and Liang’s thinking behind them. The CEO was displeased with the leak, according to the person.
The decision to put the new round on hold, which was reported earlier by Bloomberg, also comes after Moonshot AI, one of DeepSeek’s domestic rivals, recently became a global sensation with the release of its powerful new open-source model, Kimi K3 which rivaled U.S. frontier models on some benchmarks. Last week, some investors asked DeepSeek whether Kimi K3’s success could have any impact on DeepSeek’s plans, according to the person.
In recent weeks, DeepSeek has been in talks to raise 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) for the new round, shortly after the firm closed its first-ever funding round last month. Investors expect the fundraising talks to resume at a later date, but it is unclear how long the pause will last.
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