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Ben Jiang

Chinese frontier artificial intelligence lab DeepSeek has hired underwriters including Citic Securities in preparation for a domestic initial public offering (IPO), according to two people familiar with the matter.
Citic Securities was one of the four underwriters tapped by the Hangzhou-based firm, which aims to begin the IPO process this year to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Nasdaq-like Star market, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information was private.
DeepSeek and Citic Securities did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours on Wednesday.
The progress towards an IPO comes as the company is moving to complete a pre-IPO round of financing that could value it at about 500 billion yuan (US$74 billion) before investment.
DeepSeek is pursuing its listing alongside Beijing-based Moonshot AI, which confidentially filed last week for a Hong Kong IPO early next year, the South China Morning Post reported last week.
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, in which it aims to raise US$3 billion to US$5 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg, citing sources.
In their push for funding and IPOs, the firms are following in the footsteps of Beijing-based Z.ai, also known as Zhipu, and Shanghai-based MiniMax, which went public in Hong Kong earlier this year.
The two were among the world’s first pure-play AI model developers to tap public market capital to fund their expansion, although their valuations lag their US counterparts.
OpenAI and Anthropic could be valued at US$1 trillion and US$2 trillion, respectively, in their coming IPOs, while Z.ai and MiniMax’s market capitalisation stood at HK$425 billion (US$54 billion) and HK$112 billion as of market close on Wednesday.
DeepSeek’s funding push comes amid a hiring and infrastructure buildout spree. The company on Tuesday embarked on an “unprecedented” recruitment move to overhaul back-end systems that have been severely strained by booming user demand, the SCMP reported. The company was also in talks with local data centres to add computing capacity.


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Chinese AI firm DeepSeek taps underwriters including Citic Securities for IPO: sources

DeepSeek is moving to complete a pre-IPO round of financing that could value it at about US$74 billion. Photo: Shutterstock

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The official Moonshot AI corporate logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen. Photo: Shutterstock

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The firms join a broader trend of hi-tech firms flocking to the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Nasdaq-style Star Market. Photo: Xinhua

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Bonnie Chan Yiting, CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), speaks during a ceremony to mark HKEX’s 26th anniversary in Hong Kong. Photo: May Tse

Bonnie Chan Yiting, CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), meets the media at Exchange Square in Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

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The DeepSeek logo on a wall in Hangzhou, eastern China's Zhejiang province. Photo: Getty Images

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Start-up aims to begin the IPO process this year to list on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-like Star market, sources say


Start-up aims to begin the IPO process this year to list on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-like Star market, sources say.


Chinese AI firm DeepSeek taps underwriters including Citic Securities for IPO: sources

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Start-up aims to begin the IPO process this year to list on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-like Star market, sources say

Start-up aims to begin the IPO process this year to list on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-like Star market, sources say