Originally published on AI Tech Connect.
The deal in one line DeepSeek — the Hangzhou lab that has spent the last eighteen months handing the open-weight community a free seat at the frontier — is reportedly in talks to raise between $3 billion and $4 billion at a valuation of roughly $45 billion, with some outlets putting the upper end nearer $50 billion. The lead investor in discussions is the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, the state-backed vehicle the country's tech press still simply calls "Big Fund". Tencent and Hillhouse Capital are named as likely co-investors. TechCrunch broke the story on 6 May; Bloomberg and TechNode have since corroborated the broad shape of the round. For a company that has, up until now, financed every training run out of the pocket of its hedge-fund parent High-Flyer, this is a…
