News linked to both this project and an event.
According to The Paper, Ant International announced that it has completed its Series A funding round. Ant Group, along with some existing shareholders including Alibaba and multiple well-known international investment institutions, participated in this round. It is reported that the funding amount is approximately $1.2 billion, which will be used to expand global business, accelerate investment in frontier technologies such as AI, broaden inclusive fintech services such as cross-border payments and global accounts, and help global merchants achieve growth.
the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PitchBook recently released the "Venture Monitor" report, noting that after SpaceX's listing and the potential IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI, the combined value generated by these three companies will reach an unprecedented level. The report states: "With SpaceX going public, combined with the future exits of these companies, the value created will surpass the total exit value of all US VC-backed companies since 2000." The core factor lies in the extremely high valuation expectations of these three companies.SpaceX is currently valued at approximately $1.77 trillion, while Anthropic and OpenAI are also moving towards multi-trillion-dollar enterprise valuations. The market estimates that the combined valuation of the three companies could exceed $4 trillion. This scale far surpasses past large-scale tech IPOs. Data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that total US IPO fundraising last year was about $70 billion, whereas SpaceX's single-company valuation has already reached a level that traditional large-scale IPOs find hard to match. As a once-highly-watched tech IPO case, Uber was valued at around $84 billion when it went public in 2019, which is less than 5% of SpaceX's current valuation.However, the comparison by NVCA and PitchBook is based on "enterprise value created," not the actual cash-out amounts for investors. Additionally, the analysis does not include non-US companies like Alibaba. Furthermore, the value created by already-public companies such as Apple, Google Android, YouTube, and Instagram is not counted in the VC exit statistics.The report points out that over the past 25 years, the US tech market has seen several historic IPOs, including Google in 2004, Tesla in 2010, and Meta in 2012. These companies have since become some of the world's most valuable enterprises. Additionally, companies like LinkedIn, Slack, and WhatsApp were acquired for over $20 billion.The NVCA believes that the current IPO cycle driven by artificial intelligence (AI) could further break these records. The analysis suggests two main reasons driving this trend:First, tech companies are staying private for longer periods than in the past, accumulating higher valuations through prolonged financing and business expansion. If today's Google were in its early stages, it might also choose to go public later to achieve a higher market valuation.Second, the AI industry is highly capital-intensive. Training large AI models requires massive investment, pushing AI companies to continuously raise substantial funds and driving rapid valuation growth.Industry insiders believe that the potential scale of IPOs by SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI will test the capacity of the US capital market. As AI companies transition from the private financing stage to the public market, how trillions of dollars in tech assets flow into the stock market will become a focus for investors. (DigitalToday)
According to Yicai, recent reports indicate that DeepSeek is launching its first round of financing, attracting interest from companies including Tencent and Alibaba in discussions regarding equity investment. However, negotiations between Alibaba and DeepSeek recently broke down. Today, a market source told Yicai reporters that Alibaba likely did not engage in such negotiations.
in April, DeepSeek launched a rare massive fundraising plan, attracting major players Tencent and Alibaba. Earlier, media sources claimed that negotiations between Alibaba and DeepSeek had collapsed. In response, a market source exclusively told reporters on May 9 that Alibaba likely did not participate in any talks. (National Business Daily)
: A source close to DeepSeek revealed that Alibaba and DeepSeek could not reach an agreement on specific financing terms. On one hand, Alibaba's own ecosystem is not highly compatible with DeepSeek, and DeepSeek is not short of potential external investors, hoping to minimize restrictions on the terms.Additionally, DeepSeek and potential shareholders are currently in negotiations. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that Tencent has proposed subscribing to up to 20% of DeepSeek's shares in this financing round, but DeepSeek is reluctant to cede a large proportion of control. According to previous reports, DeepSeek is valued at up to 300 billion and plans to raise 50 billion, of which 20 billion will be internal capital increase and 30 billion external fundraising. This valuation has been confirmed by DeepSeek internal employees. (White Whale Lab)
According to The Information, Tencent and Alibaba are in talks to invest in DeepSeek, which is valued at over $20 billion.