DeepSeek has agreed to lead Winverse AI’s first external fundraising, described by people familiar with the matter as a seed round worth tens of millions of dollars. DeepSeek expects to tap a portion of its own $12 billion-plus financing for the effort, and those people said the round would value Winverse at roughly $400 million once completed. The transaction is not final; specifics such as the valuation and the roster of investors could still change, the people said. Winverse has also secured support from other investors, including Meituan’s Long-Z Investments.
DeepSeek’s role and recent activity
DeepSeek, founded in 2023 in Hangzhou by hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng, rose to industry prominence two years later, according to the source. Before agreeing to steer Winverse’s external raise, the firm acquired a 2% stake linked to Unitree Robotics’s Shanghai listing to collaborate on embodied-intelligence models. Representatives for DeepSeek and Long-Z Investments declined to respond to emailed inquiries, and Winverse founder Hu Han did not respond to questions sent by email seeking comment.
Who is behind Winverse
Winverse was established in 2026 by Hu Han, who most recently served as lead scientist at Tencent, running the company’s vision language and embodied foundation model groups. His exit from Tencent occurred as the WeChat operator reorganized its AI research unit in a bid to keep pace with rivals such as DeepSeek and Moonshot.
Why the funding matters for robotics and AI
Most of the capital cited in the talks is earmarked for training models and building data centers, though it could also support co-developing startups like Winverse. Advancing robots to follow voice commands, perform physical tasks and move beyond demonstrative maneuvers requires new types of AI models that differ from systems popularized by OpenAI’s ChatGPT or by DeepSeek, the source noted. Capital is tighter in China, where Unitree and related players continue to seek funds for their next research steps.
Implications for investors and industry
If the deal closes, it would rank among DeepSeek’s largest startup investments and signal a shift from lab-focused work toward factory-floor use cases. The move also highlights a broader trend in China of top researchers leaving large tech firms to build specialized labs targeting world models for self-driving, interactive video or robotics. For retail investors, the takeaway in the source’s assessment is that embodied AI is attracting substantial capital on both sides of the Pacific; the funding bridge from algorithms to physical machines could ripple into suppliers of hardware, industrial automation and cloud services as these systems scale. A model lab leading a hardware round represents a notable crossover in that dynamic.
