Back to News

DeepSeek doubles latest funding round to ~$16B due to surging black market Nvidia Blackwell chip prices

#deepseek#nvidia#funding#china

The Information reports that DeepSeek has doubled its latest funding round to nearly $16 billion, driven by surging black market prices for Nvidia Blackwell chips. Chinese state-owned investors account for 27% of the round.

Coverage timeline

  1. Techmeme
    Sources: DeepSeek doubled its latest round's size due to surging black market Nvidia Blackwell chip prices, with Chinese state-owned investors representing 27% (The Information)

    The Information : Sources: DeepSeek doubled its latest round's size due to surging black market Nvidia Blackwell chip prices, with Chinese state-owned investors representing 27% — Chinese AI star DeepSeek's nearly $16 billion funding round this month involved not only a deluge of capital but a who's …

Related stories

  • DeepSeek raises ~$15B in one of China's largest funding rounds

    DeepSeek has raised approximately $15 billion (100 billion yuan) in its latest funding round, one of China's largest ever, according to sources. CATL and Tencent are among the biggest contributors. The round comes days after the US ordered federal agencies to remove DeepSeek's technology over national security concerns.

    2 reports · 2 sources

  • DeepSeek nears $12B+ funding round with Tencent, CATL; IPO planned for early 2027

    DeepSeek is close to raising at least $12 billion (80 billion yuan) in a funding round that could reach approximately $14.9 billion, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. Tencent and CATL are the biggest contributors, and the round precedes a planned initial public offering in early 2027.

    1 reports · 1 sources

  • DeepSeek open-sources DeepInfer inference stack, reports 82% gross margin

    DeepSeek released its internal inference framework DeepInfer under the Apache 2.0 license, along with the token codec component deepseek-recipe. The framework, which supports DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and targets Nvidia SM100 GPUs and Huawei Ascend 950 NPUs, reportedly achieves a throughput of 155 trillion tokens per day per cluster, with API revenue of $38 per GPU-hour at off-peak pricing, implying a gross margin of 82% after GPU rental costs. The release sparked discussions about the profitability of AI inference services.

    3 reports · 3 sources2335 points · 890 comments

  • OpenAI nears $30B round at $1.25T valuation, down from $1.4T pitch

    Sources report OpenAI is nearing a funding round of up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, led by UAE investors and Coatue, ahead of a potential IPO. The valuation target was cut from the $1.4 trillion pitched earlier this month after resistance from some investors. If completed, the round would make OpenAI the most valuable private company ever.

    4 reports · 2 sources

News updates every hour. Subscribe in your RSS reader to get new stories automatically.

Subscribe