The company DeepSeek reached an annualized revenue of approximately US$ 1 billion and is moving to complete a new financing round of about US$ 7.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the company's numbers who spoke with The Information. The deal could value the Chinese artificial intelligence developer at about US$ 74 billion.
The revenue pace more than doubled in a few months, after being below US$ 500 million. The metric represents how much the company would generate in revenue over 12 months if it maintained its current performance and does not correspond to revenue already recognized.
In the first seven months of 2026, DeepSeek recorded about 475 million yuan, or US$ 70.7 million, in revenue. The figure is approximately ten times higher than the revenue obtained during the entire year of 2025.
Part of the acceleration occurred after increases in the prices charged for access to the company's models via API. According to information presented to investors, DeepSeek managed to preserve demand even after the price adjustments.
New round could value DeepSeek at US$ 74 billion
The company is seeking to raise 50 billion yuan, equivalent to about US$ 7.5 billion, in its second external fundraising. The reported expectation is to complete the deal by the end of October.
In June, DeepSeek had already raised more than US$ 7.4 billion in its first external fundraising, with participation from investors such as Tencent, CATL, JD.com, and NetEase.
The new capital should bolster investments in model development. More than 70% of the company's computing capacity would be allocated to training and research, while less than 30% is used for inference.
DeepSeek is also preparing a possible initial public offering on the STAR Market in Shanghai, although the schedule and size of the potential offering have not yet been defined.
