Chinese language AI firm DeepSeek made world headlines for serving to spark an enormous sell-off in U.S. tech shares on Monday, with Nvidia dropping nearly 20%.
In China, the hype round DeepSeek has despatched shares of some public firms with supposed ties to it hovering. The issue: There’s no proof these firms ever invested in or cooperated with DeepSeek to start with.
Rumored DeepSeek traders Huajin Capital and Zhejiang Orient popped by 10% on Monday, whereas a analysis firm known as Sublime China Information jumped 20% for supposedly cooperating with DeepSeek on its AI fashions. (These are the authorized most day by day beneficial properties in Chinese language exchanges.)
Nevertheless, Elegant China Data denied cooperating with DeepSeek in a disclosure, and Huajin Capital denied to a Chinese language enterprise information outlet that it ever disclosed a DeepSeek funding. Funding firm Zhejiang Orient hasn’t responded to a request for remark from TechCrunch, however there’s no public proof that they’re an investor in DeepSeek, both.
The rumors seem to have originated from unsubstantiated Chinese language lists — which have gone viral — of assorted publicly traded firms supposedly tied to DeepSeek.
DeepSeek, a personal firm, has by no means publicly introduced any VC investments, whereas Chinese language company records make no point out of VC companies on DeepSeek’s cap desk. As a substitute, its founder Liang Wenfeng is listed because the useful proprietor of all three entities that kind DeepSeek. DeepSeek is funded by the quant agency Excessive-Flyer (of which Wenfeng is CEO) and has no plans to fundraise, Wenfeng told Chinese language media outlet Waves final 12 months.
In a 2023 interview with the identical outlet, Wenfeng mentioned he had discussions with completely different funding sources, however VCs “appeared hesitant” about investing in a research-focused firm, prioritizing commercialization as an alternative.
DeepSeek didn’t reply to TechCrunch’s remark request.