[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Chinese travel luggage maker Anhui Korun disclosed on July 16 (local time) that a fund it invested in through a subsidiary spent 2.9 billion yuan to indirectly acquire a 0.8265 percent stake in DeepSeek.

Based on that, DeepSeek’s corporate value comes to 350.88 billion yuan (about $51.82 billion), Reuters reported.

The disclosure provides rare public evidence showing the price and investor list related to DeepSeek’s first outside fundraising, which it has never made public, Reuters reported.

DeepSeek, an unlisted company, has no obligation to make regular disclosures.

DeepSeek drew attention in the global market early last year, with its V3 and R1 models showing it could compete with leading U.S. AI companies.

DeepSeek long refused outside capital and relied on High-Flyer, a quantitative hedge fund run by its founder Liang Wenfeng (량원펑). Reuters reported in May that DeepSeek changed that approach to secure computing capacity and improve employee welfare. In June, Reuters reported that DeepSeek planned to raise about 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) from Tencent and CATL, among others, and that its post-investment valuation could reach 350 billion to 400 billion yuan.