DeepSeek reveals 10X revenue growth ahead of $74B valuation funding round

DeepSeek gained fresh momentum for its pre-IPO funding round at an estimated 500 billion yuan ($74 billion) valuation when its revenue report for 2026 up to July landed at 475 million yuan ($70.7 million). 

The ten times revenue boost on what the Chinese AI startup earned in all of 2025 is the latest disruptive info to come out of the Hangzhou lab that shook global markets with its debut last January. 

Next on the firm’s agenda is a Shanghai stock market listing.

The revenue leap that is fueling the raise

The revenue figures first reported by The Information pegged DeepSeek’s revenue for the first seven months of the year at 475 million yuan ($70.7 million). Net loss over the same period also reduced to 715 million yuan, cutting down on the 935 million yuan hit it took for all of 2025.

Scale aside, DeepSeek’s numbers become especially impressive when considering its margins, which The Information attributed to models that require fewer chips to perform at competitive levels. 

• Overall gross margin was 44.6%
• API access business margin hit 82.9% 

The latest numbers show DeepSeek outperforming The Information’s annualized revenue estimate of $400 million to $500 million.

How much did OpenAI and Anthropic make in the same period?

Despite the impressive profit margins that DeepSeek reported, it still cannot compare to the largest American labs in terms of scale. 

For example, OpenAI’s Q1 revenue came in at $5.7 billion at a 39% gross margin. Anthropic, on the other hand, booked $11.5 billion in second quarter revenue and expects 2026 gross margin to be at 63%. 

Where DeepSeek compares favorably is the 82.9% margin on its core API product. Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic reports anything near those numbers. 

The Chinese AI lab consistently puts up those stats because of how it maxes out on efficiency, including in its pricing strategy. As Cryptopolitan reported earlier this month, SpaceXAI’s Grok 4.6 costs nearly seven times as much as DeepSeek’s V4 Pro model, which charges $0.87 per million output tokens.

Who is funding DeepSeek?

According to reports, Deepseek’s next funding round is targeting a 50 billion yuan raise before the end of August. 

This round is expected to feature returning and new backers. Monolith, Shixiang Capital, and Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) are expected to participate after backing previous rounds.

Prospective first-time backers include CPE, Legend Capital, and Stony Creek Capital. Funds tied to GigaDevice and Hefei state investment vehicles are also involved, IndexBox reported.

DeepSeek’s first funding round brought in 50 billion yuan ($7 billion) at a valuation above $50 billion in June. The next round was paused by founder Liang Wenfeng over leaked meeting comments.

Is DeepSeek ready to go public? 

The capital raise doubles as pre-IPO groundwork. DeepSeek has begun preparing for a listing on Shanghai’s Star Market, a Nasdaq-style board, and could file as early as the end of this year. 

A public debut is targeted for 2027, and the lab has reportedly already picked investment banks for the Shanghai listing.

The lab, which holds the title of China’s most valuable AI startup, has not publicly confirmed the IPO talks.

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