DeepSeek reopens $8 billion funding round while investing $20.8 million in humanoid robot maker Unitree

DeepSeek invests $20.8 million in Unitree's Shanghai IPO

BEIJING, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has invested 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) in robot maker Unitree (688836.SS), opens new tab and agreed to jointly develop AI models for humanoid machines, according to a stock-exchange filing. DeepSeek received 933,399 Unitree shares, representing 2.31% of the shares allocated through the Shanghai initial public offering's strategic placement. The companies, both based in China's eastern tech hub of Hangzhou, said they would ⁠combine DeepSeek's expertise in AI models with Unitree's work in mechanical engineering, motion control and embodied intelligence. Unitree, also known as Yushu Technology, would give preference to DeepSeek when procuring model-training services and technical solutions. DeepSeek would similarly favour Unitree when purchasing robots or exploring embodied-AI applications, the filing said. The partnership targets a key bottleneck for humanoid developers: building a robot "brain" capable of understanding unfamiliar surroundings and reliably turning instructions into physical actions. China has developed relatively inexpensive robots capable of walking, running and performing choreographed routines, but useful ⁠autonomous work requires models trained on scarce physical-world data, including demonstrations of manipulating objects and responding to changing environments. Chinese robot makers are operating data-collection facilities in which humans repeatedly guide humanoids through tasks such as folding clothes and opening doors. DeepSeek's AI models have performed strongly on ⁠coding, mathematics and reasoning tests, while competing aggressively on price. But the company's strengths have been concentrated in language-model series rather than a multimodal system able to process vision alongside text. DeepSeek has ⁠released separate vision-language research models, including VL2, but they are not integrated into its flagship commercial model. A DeepSeek researcher briefly published a project in April on improving visual ⁠reasoning through points and bounding boxes before the paper and official GitHub repository were withdrawn without a public explanation. The Unitree partnership could provide DeepSeek with robots and physical-world data to accelerate such work. Reporting by Eduardo Baptista. Editing by Mark Potter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Emerging Markets Eduardo Baptista Thomson Reuters Eduardo Baptista is a Senior Correspondent for Reuters based in Beijing, covering China's technology, space, and automotive industries. He has led enterprise and investigative reporting on China's military-linked companies, artificial intelligence and semiconductor supply chains, as well as macroeconomic and industrial policy. Baptista has reported from China for nearly a decade and holds a BA in History from the University of Cambridge.

DeepSeek raises $8bn and buys into a robot maker

DeepSeek built its name making AI cheap. This week it hiked prices, reopened an $8bn round, and bought a robot-maker stake. DeepSeek spent early 2025 proving that a good AI model did not have to cost a fortune. This week it has been busy proving it can spend one. In a handful of days, the Chinese lab reopened a multi-billion-dollar fundraising. It took a stake in the country's best-known robot maker. And it told customers it would charge them more. An $8bn round, reopened DeepSeek has restarted its second funding round, seeking close to $8bn, Bloomberg reported. The raise values the Hangzhou startup at about 500 billion yuan, or $74bn. Monolith Management, an early backer of the Chinese AI champion Moonshot, is in talks to join. The round is a restart, not a fresh start. DeepSeek paused the process last month after leaked remarks from founder Liang Wenfeng to investors caused friction. The valuation has climbed since its first external round earlier this summer. That round closed near 350 billion yuan and roughly doubled Liang's net worth to about $36bn. The company wants to raise about as much again. Discussions are ongoing, Bloomberg cautioned, and the size, timing, and investor list can still change. What the money is for marks the real shift. DeepSeek plans to spend part of it building its own data centres, led by a large facility in Inner Mongolia. The lab that made its name on efficiency now needs its own compute. On the same day the round resurfaced, it also warned users of a significant price rise. DeepSeek is quietly rewriting its own cheap-AI story. A robot bet in the same week The second move points somewhere new. DeepSeek has invested 140.8 million yuan, about $20.8m, in Unitree Robotics' Shanghai listing, Reuters reported from a stock-exchange filing. The stake buys 2.31% of the offering's strategic placement, with a 36-month lock-up. It reads as a commitment, not a trade. Alongside it sits a pact to jointly develop AI models for humanoid robots. The two Hangzhou firms will pair DeepSeek's models with Unitree's work in motion control and embodied intelligence. Each will favour the other, Unitree for training services, DeepSeek for robots. The target is the field's hardest problem. Can a robot "brain" make sense of an unfamiliar room and turn an instruction into a reliable action? The pairing is telling. DeepSeek's models are strong on coding, maths, and reasoning. But that strength sits in language, not in the multimodal systems that read the physical world. Its VL2 vision research was never folded into the flagship. A separate visual-reasoning project appeared and then vanished in April without explanation. Unitree offers the missing half, robots and the scarce physical-world data they generate. A rich price for the hardware Unitree priced its IPO on Thursday, the payoff of a listing TNW has tracked since its earlier 50-billion-yuan target. It will raise about 6.1 billion yuan, or $904m, at a valuation near $9bn, Reuters reported. That makes it the first humanoid-robot maker to list on the mainland. Backers already include vehicles tied to Tencent, Alibaba, and China Mobile. The numbers are steep. At 150.80 yuan a share the offering carries a price-to-earnings ratio of 219. The industry average is near 39, according to Chinese outlet Cailian Press. Revenue more than quadrupled to 1.7 billion yuan in 2025, and humanoids became the biggest line. But first-quarter profit, stripped of one-offs, fell 52.6% as research and marketing costs climbed. US sales, 13.3% of last year's revenue, sit exposed to fresh American curbs on Chinese robots. Put the three moves together and a pattern shows. The company that proved AI could be cheap is now raising billions, building data centres, and charging more. It is also buying into machines that move. DeepSeek is betting that the next phase will not be cheap at all. Whether the market that fell for the discount will pay the new price is the open question.

DeepSeek Resumes Funding Round to Raise $8 Billion | PYMNTS.com

The Chinese artificial intelligence startup is raising the funds at a valuation of about $74 billion, according to the report. The discussions are ongoing, and the details could change, per the report. DeepSeek did not immediately reply to PYMNTS' request for comment. The Bloomberg report said DeepSeek is "riding high" after releasing its V4 Flash AI model, which gained attention for its cost-performance offering, just like the earlier model that made the company famous in early 2025. It was reported July 25 that DeepSeek paused its second round of funding days after viral comments on American-Chinese AI competition were widely attributed to the company's founder, Liang Wenfeng. The comments, which the report said were unverified, were said to be from a transcript of a meeting Liang held with unidentified parties and involved Liang discussing a reliance on Nvidia chips for AI development and China's ongoing lag in AI sophistication compared to the U.S. It was reported less than two weeks earlier, on July 14, that DeepSeek was considering a second financing round weeks after completing its first. DeepSeek wrapped its first round of funding near the end of May, raising $7 billion at a $52 billion valuation. The July 14 report said DeepSeek had begun preliminary discussions with new investors about another funding round that would value the company at roughly $71 billion before the deal. That figure would be a 37% increase in valuation. DeepSeek's unusually fast funding schedule was related to expectations of increased capital needed to construct its own data center and acquire more chips, according to the report. It was reported July 15 that DeepSeek had built an annualized revenue base approaching $500 million and that this had strengthened the company's plans to raise billions of dollars and pursue a public listing. DeepSeek's annualized revenue reportedly had reached between $400 million and $500 million, driven largely by sales of cloud-based access to its models through application programming interfaces. DeepSeek initially gained attention in January 2025 when it debuted an AI model that sent shockwaves through the AI world by offering performance comparable to those of American rivals OpenAI and Meta while using substantially fewer Nvidia chips.

DeepSeek reopens $8 billion funding round: takes stake in Unitree

DeepSeek has reopened a funding round that aims to bring in nearly $8 billion at an estimated $74 billion valuation. The move comes just days after the Chinese AI company warned that its model prices are about to jump sharply. At the same time, DeepSeek picked up a 2.31% stake in humanoid robot maker Unitree, paying 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) through Unitree's Shanghai IPO placement. That puts DeepSeek on a bigger path than cheap language models alone. It's stepping into robotics, and Unitree just arrived with momentum: a Shanghai STAR Market IPO that valued the company at close to $9 billion, raised about $904 million, and made it mainland China's first publicly listed humanoid robot company. The two companies said they'll work together on humanoid robot models, mixing DeepSeek's LLMs with Unitree's robotics and motion-control systems. The goal is straightforward enough: help robots understand instructions better, react in real time, and take on more complicated tasks. Under the deal, Unitree also gets priority access to DeepSeek's training services, while DeepSeek gets priority access to Unitree hardware. A big chunk of the new money is expected to go toward data centers and computing capacity in Inner Mongolia. That comes only days after DeepSeek signaled a steep increase in model pricing, which analysts took as a clear attempt to start turning scale into revenue. If you keep an eye on AI and robotics in China, this one matters. There's nothing for anyone to download yet. Still, if this partnership actually clicks, DeepSeek gets a live proving ground for its models, and Unitree gets a prominent partner just as the race starts shifting past chatbots and cloud software into embodied intelligence.