On October 13th, Beijing time, Caijing reported that Liang Wenfeng's prominent large model company, DeepSeek, is on the verge of securing a substantial new round of financing, nearing 100 billion, with a pre-investment valuation pegged at 500 billion. Following its record-breaking first round of financing in June, which surpassed 50 billion and set a new benchmark in China's venture capital landscape, DeepSeek's second round is also poised to make history!

According to the report, DeepSeek initially aimed to raise 50 billion in the second round. However, in a mere half-month span, the financing amount soared to 100 billion, while the valuation remained steady at approximately 500 billion pre-investment.

This financing round will be jointly led by Tencent and CATL, with proposed investment amounts from both new and existing shareholders roughly evenly distributed. New investors include Shixi Capital, Sino IC Fund, CPE Source Peak, Legend Capital, Geely, among others, primarily focusing on industrial investments. Initial investors comprise CATL, Tencent, IDG Capital, Lixiang Capital, and Shixiang Capital.

What is undeniable is that CATL plans to newly invest around 10 billion. Previously, CATL had invested approximately 5 billion in the first round. If successful, CATL could emerge as the largest external investor with a total funding of approximately 15 billion, though still trailing Liang Wenfeng's personal investment of 20 billion in the inaugural round.

Investors are pouring in such substantial sums because this is destined to be a capital extravaganza, and more crucially, because DeepSeek's intrinsic value justifies the investment.

It is deemed a capital extravaganza because, in the United States, industry leaders like Anthropic and OpenAI boast valuations exceeding 1 trillion USD, with rumors of IPO valuations nearing 2 trillion USD. As the two foremost AI companies globally today, China is poised to produce AI firms with comparable valuations.

DeepSeek's value is underscored by the fact that, on January 20, 2025, the advent of DeepSeek R1 triggered a combined market value decline of approximately 1 trillion USD among leading AI tech stocks on the U.S. stock market, with NVIDIA alone suffering a staggering loss of about 590 billion USD in a single day.

This is not merely a capital extravaganza; it is also propelled by the accelerating IPO process of DeepSeek. Below is a timeline of DeepSeek's capital market activities this year:

1. April 2026: Launched the first round of financing with a valuation of 350 billion;

2. Late June 2026: Concluded the first round of financing, exceeding 50 billion;

3. July 2026: Initiated a new round of financing, with the pre-investment valuation rising to approximately 500 billion;

4. August 2026: Caijing reported that DeepSeek has actively commenced engaging with multiple investment banks since late August to prepare for a listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, with plans to submit the application before year-end and aim for a 2027 listing;

5. September 2026: Yan Wentao, a former executive from Hillhouse Capital, assumed the role of DeepSeek's inaugural CFO;

6. Late September 2026: Financial reports indicated that the sponsoring securities firms have commenced assisting DeepSeek in reviewing investor backgrounds to ensure the investment structure aligns with IPO requirements. Consequently, DeepSeek has requested investors to adjust certain special-purpose funds to blind pool filings, aiming to consolidate the fund as a single shareholder when filing for the IPO, thereby avoiding the merging of underlying LPs into the 200-shareholder limit and mitigating regulatory inquiry pressure;

Liang Wenfeng had previously expressed reluctance to raise funds and, after initiating financing, subjected investors to numerous audits. In this round of financing, amounting to a staggering 100 billion, Liang Wenfeng shows a preference for selecting industrial partners.

The co-leading investors, Tencent and CATL, are prominent industrial entities. Newly joined Shixi Capital was established by a joint investment team led by storage leader GigaDevice. Legend Capital serves as an investment platform under Legend Holdings; Geely is a leading automobile manufacturer.

According to reports, Liang Wenfeng is contemplating venturing into the field of embodied intelligence. Besides investing 141 million in August to participate in the IPO strategic placement of Unitree Robotics, it was recently reported that he is eyeing Winverse AI, an embodied brain startup founded by Hu Han, the former head of Tencent's Hunyuan multimodal team, with an anticipated lead investment of tens of millions of USD in the seed round and subsequent investment from Meituan Dragonball Capital.

However, there are also reports suggesting that DeepSeek might personally assemble a team to develop embodied intelligence.

Wang Xingxing of Unitree Robotics remarked yesterday at the 26th China International Industrial Expo that the biggest oversight over the past decade was underestimating the significance of AI. Now, with AI's advancement, the critical juncture for embodied intelligence may arrive sooner than anticipated, possibly within one or two years. The release of GPT-7 next year could potentially break through the current bottleneck of embodied intelligence.

This could also be the impetus behind DeepSeek's investment and foray into the field of embodied intelligence.