DeepSeek has appointed Citic Securities as one of four underwriters as it prepares to begin an initial public offering process this year aimed at listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Star Market, people familiar with the matter said.
DeepSeek and Citic Securities did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours on Wednesday.
DeepSeek’s IPO plans and valuation
The move towards an IPO coincides with DeepSeek’s effort to complete a pre-IPO financing round that could value the Hangzhou-based firm at about 500 billion yuan (US$74 billion) before new investment, the sources said.
DeepSeek is pursuing its listing alongside Beijing-based Moonshot AI, which confidentially filed last week for a Hong Kong IPO planned for early next year, sources said.
Moonshot, developer of the Kimi K3 model series, was also raising a final round of financing that could value it at around US$50 billion before the IPO, and it aims to raise US$3 billion to US$5 billion, sources said.
