- DeepSeek reopened a funding round targeting nearly $8 billion at a valuation of about $74 billion, with signing expected in late August.
- The company took a 2.31% stake in humanoid robot maker Unitree, paying 140.8 million yuan (about $20.8 million) through Unitree's Shanghai IPO placement.
- Unitree priced its Shanghai listing at roughly $9 billion, becoming mainland China's first publicly traded humanoid robot company.
DeepSeek restarts its raise and takes a seat in humanoid robotics
DeepSeek has reopened the funding round it paused last month, seeking close to $8 billion at a valuation of around $74 billion, according to Bloomberg. The process stalled after leaked remarks from founder Liang Wenfeng circulated among investors. Signing is now expected in late August.
The existing syndicate includes China's national AI fund, NetEase, JD.com, IDG Capital, Loyal Valley and Shixiang Capital, with Monolith Management in talks to join. The raise sets up a company that has already signalled it is exploring a public listing.
The more revealing move sits alongside the raise. DeepSeek bought a 2.31% stake in Unitree, the Hangzhou humanoid robot maker, through a strategic placement in Unitree's initial public offering. Unitree priced its Shanghai STAR Market listing at 150.8 yuan per share, a valuation near 61 billion yuan, or about $9.04 billion, and opens subscriptions on August 10. It is the first maker of humanoid robots to list on the mainland.
| DeepSeek funding round target | ~$8 billion |
| DeepSeek valuation | ~$74 billion |
| Stake taken in Unitree | 2.31% for 140.8M yuan (~$20.8M) |
| Unitree IPO valuation | ~$9 billion, 40.45M new shares |
| Unitree 2025 revenue | Up more than 4x to 1.7B yuan |
Why the company that made AI cheap is now buying machines
Unitree's business has tilted decisively toward humanoids. In 2025 its revenue more than quadrupled to 1.7 billion yuan, and humanoid sales of 867.8 million yuan overtook the quadruped robots that made the company known. Unitree shipped roughly 5,500 humanoid units last year, more than any manufacturer worldwide, at gross margins near 60%.
For DeepSeek, the stake is small in size but clear in direction. The company built its reputation by driving the cost of model inference toward commodity levels. Putting capital into Unitree extends that logic down the stack, toward the physical layer where models stop answering questions and start controlling machines. It also gives DeepSeek a foothold in a listed robotics champion at a moment when Washington is weighing restrictions that could keep foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots out of the United States.
DeepSeek did not become China's most discussed AI company by building the best model. It did it by making intelligence cheap. The Unitree stake suggests it now sees the next margin pool not in tokens, but in the machines that act on them.
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