Oct 6 (Reuters) - Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is set to raise more than 80 billion yuan ($11.93 billion) in its latest funding round, said one person with knowledge of the matter, as the firm builds up a war chest of capital ahead of a domestic IPO.
DeepSeek kicked off the fundraising in July targeting a valuation of 500 billion yuan ($74 billion), a month after raising about $7.4 billion in its maiden external funding round, Reuters reported.
The second fundraising has drawn massive interest from
existing and new investors and the capital committed exceeds DeepSeek's original target of 50 billion yuan, said the source.
DeepSeek is expected to wrap up the fundraising in October, said the person and a second source with knowledge of the matter. Both sources declined to be identified as the information was confidential.
DeepSeek did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Bloomberg first reported on Tuesday that DeepSeek is close to securing at least 80 billion yuan in the fundraising, whose final tally could reach 100 billion, citing sources.
Chinese battery maker CATL and Tencent Holdings have committed amounts that are among the largest in the current funding round, it added.
Tencent and CATL did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
DeepSeek recently partnered with Huawei Technologies to develop programming tools optimised for the latter's Ascend AI chips, highlighting China's push to reduce reliance on Nvidia's AI ecosystem.
Last month, the company released its latest model, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, which it said was designed for greater capability, faster inference, higher throughput and scaling to larger models.
DeepSeek had hired CITIC Securities to prepare for a potential STAR Market initial public offering, though the timing, valuation and fundraising size remain undecided, Reuters reported last month.
($1=6.7045 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Hong Kong Newsroom and Abu Sultan in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Clarence Fernandez)
