DeepSeek Nears an 80B-Yuan Round and Moonshot Closes at ~$50B as Both Line Up 2027 IPOs, Bloomberg Reports

China’s two most-watched model labs are taking their last private money before going public, on a similar early-2027 IPO timetable to each other. If Bloomberg’s figures hold, DeepSeek’s round alone is on the scale of a U.S. frontier-lab raise — and the biggest named commitments there are Chinese strategics, not U.S. venture funds.

Bloomberg reported on October 6, citing people familiar with the matter, that DeepSeek is close to securing at least 80 billion yuan (about $11.93 billion at Reuters’ conversion) in its latest funding round. Battery maker CATL and Tencent have committed among the largest amounts. Separately, Bloomberg reported that Moonshot AI has closed its final private round at a valuation of about $50 billion and is heading for a Hong Kong IPO in the first quarter of 2027. Every figure in this piece traces to that Bloomberg reporting. Reuters said it could not verify the DeepSeek report.

DeepSeek: bigger than planned, not yet closed

Per Bloomberg’s report, syndicated by The Straits Times:

• DeepSeek initially sought about 50 billion yuan; demand outran that after its latest model release, and based on signed term sheets the final tally could approach 100 billion yuan.
• DeepSeek had originally targeted a valuation of about 500 billion yuan. Its previous 50-billion-yuan round valued it at roughly 350 billion yuan. The final valuation for this round was not reported.
• Talks are near an end but details may still change. Once the round closes, the company is expected to restructure ahead of an IPO planned for early 2027. Reuters reported last month that DeepSeek had hired CITIC Securities to prepare a possible STAR Market listing.
• DeepSeek plans to deploy at least 160,000 Huawei accelerators at a data centre it is building in Inner Mongolia.

A CATL representative declined to comment and Tencent had no immediate comment. DeepSeek did not respond during China’s Golden Week holiday, so confirmation may lag.

Moonshot: round closed, IPO clock running

Bloomberg says Moonshot has closed what it expects to be its last private round at about $50 billion and could hold early-look meetings with IPO investors as soon as this month. Seoul Economic Daily, summarising Bloomberg, adds that the IPO could raise up to $5 billion, that Moonshot’s previous valuation was $31.5 billion, and that its annual recurring revenue is expected to rise from about $1 billion to $2 billion by year-end. Those figures are secondhand and were not in the portion of Bloomberg’s story we could read.

This moves on the Hong Kong listing plan Bloomberg reported in July: that was a shareholder resolution, and this is a priced private round with a target quarter. It also lands a week after OpenAI attributed a reasoning-extraction campaign to people associated with Moonshot. Moonshot had not commented on that claim in the reporting we used, and it is not mentioned in the funding reports.

How to read it

Both labs are aiming at early-2027 public markets on similar calendars to each other. For DeepSeek, a battery maker and a platform company writing the biggest named cheques suggests that round is as much industrial policy as venture bet; Moonshot’s investors were not named in the reporting we could read. The 160,000-chip Huawei cluster is the compute side of DeepSeek’s bet. All of it rests on one news organisation’s unnamed sources.

Limits

• One origin. The Straits Times is Bloomberg syndication, and Reuters and Seoul Economic Daily summarise Bloomberg. They do not independently corroborate each other.
• DeepSeek’s round has not closed. The amount, investors and valuation can change, and the ~500-billion-yuan figure was a target, not a confirmed price.
• We could read only the opening of Bloomberg’s Moonshot story. The IPO size, prior valuation and ARR figures come via Seoul Economic Daily.
• Currency: the yuan figures are Bloomberg’s. The ~$12 billion conversion is Reuters’. Some outlets print the same 80 billion yuan as Singapore dollars.

Sources

• The Straits Times / Bloomberg: DeepSeek set to raise at least $15 billion (Singapore dollars) in Tencent-backed funding (October 6, 2026)
• MarketScreener / Reuters: DeepSeek to raise at least $12 billion in Tencent-backed funding, Bloomberg News reports (October 6, 2026)
• Bloomberg Law / Bloomberg News: Moonshot said to eye early 2027 IPO after value hits $50 billion (October 6, 2026)
• Seoul Economic Daily: China’s two AI leaders near IPOs at $50B and 500B yuan valuations (October 6, 2026)
• Times of AI: Moonshot’s Hong Kong IPO clock (July 19, 2026)
• Times of AI: OpenAI attributes a reasoning-extraction cluster to Moonshot AI (September 30, 2026)