DeepSeek Prepares for IPO: CITIC Securities, Shanghai STAR Market, $75 Billion Valuation, and the AI Funding Race
DeepSeek is moving closer to a domestic stock-market debut, with CITIC Securities engaged in preparations for a potential listing on Shanghai's technology-focused STAR Market.
The Hangzhou AI company is expected to begin the IPO process during 2026, although the timing of a listing, the amount to be raised, and the final IPO valuation have not yet been set.
At the same time, a pre-IPO financing round could value DeepSeek at roughly 500 billion yuan, equivalent to about $74–75 billion, making the funding round itself a major part of the story rather than a confirmed valuation for the eventual public offering.
The combination of a domestic listing plan, new private capital, and rising infrastructure spending places DeepSeek at the center of China's accelerating competition to finance frontier AI at public-market scale.
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WHAT DEEPSEEK IS PREPARING.
The IPO plan is advancing from a strategic objective toward formal pre-listing preparation.
CITIC Securities is involved in the process, an important signal because mainland Chinese IPO candidates typically appoint securities firms before the formal application stage and related regulatory work.
The intended venue is Shanghai's STAR Market, a board designed for technology and innovation companies and one of the main domestic destinations for high-growth semiconductor, software, and advanced-technology issuers.
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IPO element | Current position | What it means |
Lead preparation | CITIC Securities engaged | DeepSeek has moved beyond an informal listing concept into structured pre-IPO work. |
Target venue | Shanghai STAR Market | The company is favoring a mainland technology board rather than an overseas listing venue. |
Process timing | Expected to begin in 2026 | A formal listing application is not yet the same as a completed IPO. |
Current financing valuation | About 500 billion yuan / $74–75 billion | This figure relates to the private financing process and should not be treated as a confirmed IPO valuation. |
IPO proceeds | Not yet determined | The amount of new capital to be sold to public investors remains open. |
Company confirmation | No formal public announcement yet | Key terms can still change before a filing is made. |
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WHY THE STAR MARKET MATTERS.
A STAR Market listing would give DeepSeek access to a domestic investor base that has become increasingly willing to finance strategically important technology companies at high valuations.
For DeepSeek, the capital requirement is unusually direct: frontier-model development requires continuous spending on compute infrastructure, model training, inference capacity, engineering talent, and the research systems needed to keep pace with larger US competitors.
A domestic IPO could also reduce dependence on repeated private funding rounds while creating publicly traded equity that can be used for employee retention, acquisitions, and long-term incentive packages.
The choice of Shanghai rather than Hong Kong or the United States would keep the listing inside China's mainland capital-market and regulatory structure, which may be strategically attractive for a company operating in an industry increasingly connected to national technology policy.
That advantage comes with a different constraint: domestic listings require extensive pre-listing tutoring, disclosure preparation, regulatory review, and a level of financial transparency that private AI laboratories can often avoid during rapid expansion.
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THE $75 BILLION VALUATION AND CHINA'S AI FUNDING RACE.
DeepSeek's latest financing discussion points to a valuation of roughly $74–75 billion, a sharp step-up from the more than $50 billion level reached in its June financing.
Data Studios calculation: using $50 billion as a conservative floor for the June valuation, a move to $74 billion represents an increase of at least 48% in only a few months.
Because the earlier valuation was already above $50 billion, the exact percentage increase is somewhat lower than the simple floor-based comparison, but the magnitude still shows how quickly investor expectations around DeepSeek have repriced.
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Company | Public-market position | Current funding / listing signal |
DeepSeek | Preparing for Shanghai STAR Market process | Pre-IPO financing could value the company near $74–75 billion. |
Moonshot AI | Preparing for a Hong Kong IPO | A final private round has been discussed around a roughly $50 billion valuation. |
Z.AI | Already public in Hong Kong | One of the first major Chinese generative-AI developers to reach public markets. |
MiniMax | Already public in Hong Kong | Its listing reinforces the shift from private AI financing toward public equity. |
Broader Chinese AI sector | Multiple listings and pre-IPO rounds | Capital formation is becoming a competitive variable alongside models, compute, and talent. |
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The funding race is therefore no longer only about which company can release the strongest model at the lowest inference cost; it is increasingly about which company can secure enough permanent capital to sustain years of compute-intensive competition.
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WHAT HAS NOT BEEN DECIDED YET.
The most important unresolved point is that $75 billion is not a confirmed IPO valuation.
It is the approximate valuation associated with the current pre-IPO financing discussion, while the pricing of a future STAR Market offering would depend on the filing timetable, financial disclosures, regulatory approval, market conditions, and investor demand at the time of the sale.
DeepSeek has also not publicly fixed the amount it wants to raise in the IPO, the percentage of shares that would be sold, or the date on which trading could begin.
Those variables will determine whether the listing is primarily a capital-raising event, a liquidity event for existing investors, a tool for employee retention, or a broader attempt to establish DeepSeek as China's most important publicly traded pure-play frontier AI company.
The next concrete milestones to watch are the start of formal listing tutoring, any regulatory filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange, disclosure of financial metrics, and a clearer separation between the valuation of the private financing round and the valuation eventually assigned by public investors.
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