DeepSeek closes $7 Billion funding round & Fox buys Roku for $22 Billion

DeepSeek closes a $7 billion-plus funding round with an unusual deal structure. Anthropic and the White House discuss a resolution to the export controls on the startup's latest AI models. Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion.

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has closed its first funding round that raised more than 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) under an unusual deal structure, The Information reported.

The funding round, which values the large-language model developer at more than $50 billion, requires investors to put their capital into a limited partnership managed by DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng, instead of DeepSeek itself, as a way for Liang to ensure he retains absolute control of the company. It also imposes a five-year lockup on all investors’ shares, during which they can’t sell their stakes.

The only exception is China’s National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, which is investing 1 billion yuan directly into DeepSeek without being subject to the lock-up, and enjoys voting rights at the company.

Liang personally is writing the biggest check in the round, 20 billion yuan, followed by Tencent’s 10 billion yuan. Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology, better known as CATL, is investing 5 billion yuan, with e-commerce company JD.com, videogame publisher NetEase and venture-capital firm IDG Capital each contributing 3 billion yuan.