DeepSeek is moving to lead a seed financing round for Winverse AI, a stealth Chinese startup building artificial intelligence for robots, in a deal that would value Winverse at roughly $400 million after the investment closes, according to unnamed sources. The round would draw on capital from DeepSeek’s own fundraising and includes commitments from other investors, though the valuation and participant list remain subject to change.
The financing is expected to use funds from DeepSeek’s latest fundraising, which is close to securing more than 80 billion yuan — roughly $12 billion — and could support both model training and data center expansion as well as strategic investments in startups for joint development. Meituan’s Long‑Z Investments is among other investors that have committed to the round.
Winverse was founded in 2026 by Hu Han, who previously led Tencent’s vision‑language and embodied foundation model teams as a scientist. Hu holds a PhD from Tsinghua University and has worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Baidu. His departure from Tencent occurred as the company restructured its AI research operations.
DeepSeek’s robotics strategy
The investment would extend DeepSeek’s footprint in robotics beyond financial stakes. Earlier, DeepSeek took a 2.31% strategic stake in humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics ahead of Unitree’s Shanghai listing in August, agreeing to a 36‑month lock‑up period — three times the hold period most other strategic investors accepted. Analysts characterized that position as a strategic partnership rather than a conventional return‑seeking investment.
China has developed a strong manufacturing base for humanoid robot hardware, but the development of AI models that enable robots to interpret speech and carry out complex real‑world tasks remains a separate and less developed field. By contrast, U.S. startups working on general‑purpose AI for robots — including Skild AI and Physical Intelligence — are valued at $14 billion and $5.6 billion respectively and have attracted backing from investors such as Nvidia and Alphabet.
DeepSeek is close to raising the funds ahead of a planned market debut in early 2027. Hu Han did not respond to a request for comment. Representatives for DeepSeek and Long‑Z did not respond to requests.
