DeepSeek is set to close a funding round above 80 billion yuan ($11.9 billion) this month, after demand pushed commitments well past the company's original 50 billion yuan target. Two people familiar with the matter said the final tally could reach 100 billion yuan, with Tencent and battery maker CATL among the largest backers.
The round opened in July at a 500 billion yuan ($74 billion) valuation. Separately, Moonshot AI has filed confidentially for a Hong Kong listing after closing a private round that valued it at $50 billion, up from $31.5 billion over the summer.
What the DeepSeek check buys
DeepSeek has hired CITIC Securities to advise on a possible Shanghai STAR Market IPO, though no date or size has been set. The company released its V4.1-Flash model in September, narrowing the benchmark gap with US labs, and struck a partnership with Huawei on tooling for Ascend chips. On the business side, its API operation runs an 82.9% gross margin, and annualized revenue sat near $1 billion as of September — roughly a 74x multiple on that run rate. The company's run rate has roughly doubled from its August pace in a matter of months.
That margin is the outlier. Zhipu, the nearest listed comparison, runs a 26% gross margin and has shed roughly HK$1 trillion in market value since June. Moonshot hasn't disclosed its margins at all.
Moonshot's confidential filing and the banks behind it
Moonshot's Hong Kong filing is confidential, a common route for companies testing regulator appetite before committing to a full prospectus. Bank of America is coordinating the deal, with CICC, Deutsche Bank, and Goldman Sachs listed as sponsors. The company is targeting a first-quarter 2027 listing and a raise of up to $5 billion.
Its private round closed at $50 billion, and its annualized revenue was around $1 billion as of October — a multiple of roughly 50x. Moonshot has told investors it wants to hit $2 billion in annualized revenue by December, which would halve that multiple to 25 times.
The regulatory wrinkle
Chinese regulators have opened a data-security probe into both DeepSeek and Moonshot. The investigation adds a layer of uncertainty to both timelines, particularly for Moonshot, whose confidential filing and 2027 listing target assume a clean run through Beijing's review process. Neither company has commented publicly on the scope of the probe.
Why the timing matters for both listings
The two companies are racing toward public markets alongside a much larger competitor. OpenAI's last closed round was $852 billion in March, with a latest mark of $1.4 trillion in talks as of September and annualized revenue near $70 billion. Anthropic closed at $965 billion in May, is targeting an IPO above $2 trillion as of September, and posted $65 billion in annualized revenue in July. Anthropic is preparing what could be the largest IPO ever.
Hong Kong paid a scarcity premium for Zhipu when it was one of only two listed labs. With Moonshot, DeepSeek, and Anthropic all heading for exchanges within a year, that scarcity is ending.
Two dates now anchor the story: Moonshot's December revenue figure, which will set the number in its prospectus, and DeepSeek's October close, which will fix the mark for its own eventual listing.
