DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup, has seen its investment stakes become highly sought after, leading to a shadow market where intermediaries are proposing steep fee structures. For instance, some propose an "18% front-end, 35% back-end" model, meaning an investor putting in 100 million yuan would pay an initial 18 million yuan fee and then share 35% of future profits. Even with these high fees, securing an investment stake is not guaranteed, as DeepSeek conducts thorough identity verification on all participating investors and their underlying limited partners.
Investors in DeepSeek face a five-year lock-up period, during which their investments cannot be transferred. Furthermore, most external investors, apart from the National AI Industry Investment Fund, receive no voting rights or board seats, and only financial returns strictly proportional to their investment. This unusual structure, where most investors buy into a limited partnership controlled by founder Liang Wenfeng, grants them no voting rights, while the state-backed National AI Industry Investment Fund directly invested with voting rights and no lock-up.
The market surrounding DeepSeek's financing has also been plagued by fake investment quotas and intermediary misconduct. Some institutions falsely claimed control over large investment allocations but ultimately failed to make the official investor list. There have also been reports of investors paying as much as 5 million yuan in "meeting fees" to try and connect with founder Liang Wenfeng, often to no avail. DeepSeek's first external funding round in June 2026 raised $7.4 billion, valuing the company at over $50 billion, making it China's most valuable AI startup, and it is reportedly seeking new capital at a valuation as high as $71 billion ahead of a potential Q2 2027 Shanghai STAR Market IPO.
