News
Guide
Is AI Making Your Organization More Productive or More Dependent?
Key Takeaways
- DeepSeek could list on Shanghai’s Star Market as early as the second quarter of 2027.
- The company is seeking new funding at a valuation of up to $74 billion.
- DeepSeek’s rapid growth is being tempered by regulatory scrutiny, government bans and geopolitical risks.
Chinese AI company DeepSeek has begun preparing an initial public offering on Shanghai's Star Market, and could file as early as late 2026, according to reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, both citing anonymous sources.
The Hangzhou-based company, founded in 2023, could debut as early as the second quarter of 2027.
DeepSeek is also in discussions on a new funding round at a pre-money valuation of $71 billion to $74 billion, according to the Financial Times and Reuters. The round comes just weeks after the company raised more than $7 billion in June 2026 at a post-money valuation exceeding $50 billion.
Both the IPO timeline and funding plans remain subject to regulatory clearance, market conditions and company performance.
DeepSeek Joins a Crowded AI IPO Pipeline
DeepSeek joins a lineup of other AI companies that have recently gone public or announced IPO plans.
OpenAI Begins IPO Process Amid Profitability Questions
OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO at the beginning of June, valuing the company at $852 billion post-money. However, in a blog post following the filing, CEO Sam Altman said the company has not yet decided when to go public and may remain private for some time.
The ChatGPT-creator still faces a number of challenges before hitting public markets, including scrutiny over its profitability, regulatory pressures and internal uncertainty from CFO Sarah Friar.
Anthropic Begins IPO Process at a $965 Billion Valuation
Anthropic confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC just one week prior to OpenAI, a formal step toward a potential initial public offering of its common stock. While the filing gives Anthropic the option to go public once the SEC completes its review, the company noted its IPO timeline will ultimately depend on market conditions, among other factors.
The filing came just days after Anthropic closed a $65 billion Series H funding round at a post-money valuation of $965 billion.
SpaceX Falls Below Its IPO Price After Early Surge
SpaceX, owner of AI chatbot Grok, launched its initial public offering on June 12, with a starting price of $135 per share. While the listing quickly surged to $150 per share on its first day, the stock has since dipped below its IPO price, currently trading at around $134.
DeepSeek’s Growth Brings New Investment and Scrutiny
DeepSeek's $7.4 billion maiden round in June 2026 used an unconventional structure: investors placed capital into a limited partnership controlled by Wenfeng rather than DeepSeek directly, with most subject to a five-year lock-up and no voting rights. China's National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund was the sole exception, investing directly with voting rights.
Wenfeng separately committed 20 billion yuan of his own capital, while Tencent and CATL were reportedly weighing investments of 10 billion yuan and 5 billion yuan, respectively.
From Automation to Intelligence: How Leading Teams Are Rethinking Operations
Register
Ai4 2026
Register
How to Win the War for Agentic Citations: The AEO Playbook You Need Now
Register
Content Leaders Collective: Proving Content's Business Impact Starts With the Right CCMS
Watch Now
The funding follows an aggressive model release cadence that has pressured Western rivals on performance and cost. DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model, released in January 2025, was trained for a claimed $294,000 and delivered reasoning at costs estimated 20-50 times cheaper than comparable OpenAI offerings.
Subsequent releases included V3.2, which cut long-context inference costs by 50% to 75%, followed by the April 2026 previews of V4-Pro and V4-Flash. The 1.6-trillion-parameter, open-weight model family features a 1-million-token context window and launched with a 75% price reduction.
The company's rise has also attracted regulatory friction: Anthropic accused DeepSeek in February of operating more than 24,000 fraudulent accounts to extract capabilities from Claude, while German regulators sought to delist the app over alleged unlawful data transfers to China. Australia, the US, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan have all banned DeepSeek from government devices.