DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based AI startup, has resumed its second fundraising round and is seeking close to US$8 billion at a valuation of about 500 billion yuan (US$74.1 billion).

Monolith Management is in talks to invest after DeepSeek paused the process last month.

The pause followed leaked, unverified remarks attributed to founder Liang Wenfeng on AI competition between China and the US, DeepSeek’s reliance on Nvidia chips, and China lagging behind the US in AI sophistication.

Those issues went viral and were politically sensitive.

Liang also co-founded hedge fund High-Flyer, which launched DeepSeek in 2023 using computing infrastructure built for quantitative research and trading, and still effectively controls the startup.

DeepSeek’s target valuation would far exceed Moonshot AI’s US$4.8 billion private valuation, as well as listed Chinese AI peers Zhipu at about US$13 billion, and MiniMax at about US$15.2 billion.

Part of the new capital would support a planned large-scale data center in Inner Mongolia.

DeepSeek also said on August 6 that it plans to raise prices for its AI services.

But US rules now require approval for Nvidia H20 chip exports to China, which could limit the startup’s computing capacity.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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