DeepSeek Raises $15 Billion To Scale and Challenge OpenAI and Anthropic Dominance

DeepSeek raised $15 billion, with CATL and Tencent among its largest backers. DeepSeek has raised roughly $20.6 billion in six months, ahead of a planned Shanghai IPO. OpenAI and Anthropic still out-raise DeepSeek, but its efficiency could narrow that gap quickly. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen massive developments from the frontier models. DeepSeek, which rattled Wall Street in 2025 with a cheap, surprisingly capable AI model, has completed a major funding round to challenge this growing dominance. DeepSeek raises $15 billion in its latest funding round to scale and heat up the AI race even further. The funding, worth about 100 billion yuan, came from battery giant CATL and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, and other top tech firms.