BEIJING, July 16 (Reuters) – Chinese luggage maker Anhui Korrun said on Thursday a fund it had invested in deployed 2.9 billion yuan for an indirect 0.8265% stake in DeepSeek, implying the privately held artificial intelligence startup was valued at 350.88 billion yuan ($51.82 billion).
The filing offers rare public evidence about the pricing of DeepSeek’s maiden external fundraising, which the low-profile company has never publicly detailed. As a private company, DeepSeek has no routine disclosure obligations.
DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
DeepSeek rose to global prominence early last year after its low-cost V3 and R1 models challenged assumptions about China’s ability to compete with leading U.S. AI firms despite restrictions on advanced chip exports.
The company had long rejected outside capital and relied on founder Liang Wenfeng’s quantitative hedge fund, High-Flyer, for financing. Reuters reported in May that DeepSeek reversed that strategy to fund more computing capacity and improve employee benefits as competition intensified.
Reuters reported in June that DeepSeek was set to raise about 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) from investors including Tencent and battery maker CATL, potentially valuing the company at between 350 billion yuan and 400 billion yuan after the investment.
Anhui Korrun said its subsidiary Ningbo Purun invested 40 million yuan in a 2.9 billion yuan fund that acquired an indirect 0.8265% stake in Hangzhou-based DeepSeek. Investors had fully paid their contributions by June 17, and the investment, which gave Anhui Korrun a 0.0114% look-through stake, was completed on July 15.
The filings do not specify whether the investments involved new shares, existing shares or securities with different rights, so the figure is best described as a transaction-implied equity valuation rather than DeepSeek’s definitive round valuation.
Jiuan Medical separately said its Hong Kong subsidiary invested 750 million yuan through another fund for an approximately 0.21% indirect stake in DeepSeek, broadly consistent with Anhui Korrun’s disclosure.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that DeepSeek was planning another fundraising round of up to 50 billion yuan at a valuation of about 500 billion yuan ($74 billion), weeks after completing its maiden round.
It has also begun early preparations for a potential listing on Shanghai’s STAR Market and set an internal target to file for an initial public offering this year, people familiar with the matter said.
The plans underscore the rising cost of competing in AI, which requires heavy spending on chips, data centres and engineering talent.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista, Editing by William Maclean)
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