China's artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has entered the final stage of raising new funding based on a company valuation of about 500 billion yuan, or about 103 trillion won.

The South China Morning Post reported on Aug. 26 that DeepSeek is seeking about 50 billion yuan, or about 10 trillion won, and the round is expected to close by the end of August.

The fundraising is tied to DeepSeek's listing preparations. DeepSeek, which is headquartered in Hangzhou, is considering listing on Shanghai's STAR Market for tech stocks. Two sources said the company could file for an IPO as early as the end of the year and is targeting a market debut in 2027.

The investor lineup is also in focus. Existing investors Monolith and Sshang Capital, along with Chinese battery company CATL, are known to have participated in this round. New investors CPE, Legend Capital and Stony Creek Capital are in talks. Stony Creek Capital is a semiconductor-focused private equity firm and was introduced as being linked to Zhu Yiming (주이밍), chairman of ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and founder of GigaDevice. Funds backed by GigaDevice and state-owned investment entities in Hefei are also said to be involved in the deal.

DeepSeek drew attention from the global AI industry with low-cost, high-performance models, but it has recently faced intensifying competition in and outside China. Against that backdrop, the company recently raised prices for application programming interface use. Aggressive price competition among Chinese AI companies is cited as shifting toward a focus on monetisation.

The price hike is not limited to DeepSeek. Major developers including Zhipu AI, Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings and Baidu have also raised prices this year. That is a signal that the industry is shifting from a strategy of securing users through discounts toward charging for AI services whose costs have risen.

It is also expanding computing resources and infrastructure. With competition intensifying, DeepSeek is pushing plans to increase staffing and computing infrastructure. The company is also known to be reviewing a plan to add about 1 gigawatt of computing capacity.

The market is watching whether this round amounts to a pre-IPO re-rating rather than a simple fundraising. If DeepSeek secures a valuation around 500 billion yuan and proceeds through listing steps, it could have a significant impact on fundraising and monetisation strategies among Chinese AI companies. With price increases and expanded infrastructure investment under way at the same time, attention in the IPO process is expected to focus on how much DeepSeek can prove not only its growth potential but also its profit structure.