DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng remains cautious about external fundraising

On February 19, according to The Information, DeepSeek has so far not raised external funding, in part to avoid pressure from investors to commercialize its product too quickly. But since the company's artificial intelligence chatbot app became an overnight success a few weeks ago, the company has considered external financing due to the need for more artificial intelligence chips and servers to cope with rapidly growing usage and support model development, according to people familiar with the internal discussions. In addition to discussing whether it should raise funds, executives at DeepSeek and its hedge fund parent, Magic Quantitative, are also discussing whether it should shift from focusing primarily on research to building a business that can generate significant revenue and eventually generate profits, according to people familiar with the discussions. It is reported that DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng remains cautious about external fundraising.